Crayton Webb

Imagine being the top advisor to one of the world’s most well-known faith leaders. If you haven’t heard of TD Jakes, well, you’re going to today. He, of course, is the pastor of the Potter’s House with the following of 30,000 parishioners. Our guest today is the one and only Hattie Hill, who ran the TD Jakes foundation. She’s now also president and CEO of Hattie Hill Enterprises. She’s provided consulting and training services to Fortune 500 companies all over the world, focused on diversity, inclusion and leadership development. Hattie, welcome. Thank you so much for being here today.

Hattie Hill

Thank you, Crayton. I’m excited to join you.

Crayton Webb

You’re a dear friend. I’ve known you for 20 years. We were counting up. We first served on the board of the Visit Dallas, Visit Dallas, formerly the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau. You have had a fascinating life and are a leader in reputation in your own right. So we’re not going to just make this about Bishop Jakes today. We want to talk about you and your story, but I’m fascinated by your origin story. You are one of six girls grew up with a single mom on a farm.

Hattie Hill

The farm is still there. Three of my sisters are still there, and it was actually the place where my true platform began, because that’s where your character starts. And my mother was all about character, faith, family, do good for the world. That’s your she used to tell us that was our charge for breathing, to do good, to do good. Yeah. I mean, it was a force for good before we ever heard a force for good.

Crayton Webb

Where were you in the birth order?

Hattie Hill

I’m fourth, four of the six. Yeah, so I was a middle child. I was real quiet. You get lost when you’re fourth. You don’t even, they don’t even call your name when you have three other sisters. But no, it was great and fun life, just a, you know, hard life. Grew up poor, but a fun life.

Crayton Webb

What got you out of Arkansas?

Hattie Hill

Education. My mother was keen on education, and that was her hope for all of her girls. And she would say that all the time. I remember once thinking saying, you know, out loud within her earshot that I didn’t think I wanted to go to college, and the look she gave me told me that was not a good idea. So absolutely, I went to college, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, undergraduate degree in political science and history. Was going to be a lawyer that some changed my mind, but decided psychology that was my, you know, the whole idea of learning how people think. And I found, I found that gift of getting a master’s, and after that, it was off to Texas, and life’s been good ever since.

Crayton Webb

What brought you to Texas?

Hattie Hill

A job, as always, I was recruited by my master’s counselor, that he was actually our facilitator for most of our courses, and ran the program, and he said, You know, there’s a great program in Texas. They’re really recruiting they’re recruiting counselors, and if you’re not afraid to leave home, then I can get your job. And I said, “When do we leave?” The salary was triple what I was making as a recent graduate with a master’s degree.

Crayton Webb

Yeah, but you weren’t in a hurry to leave Arkansas. That wasn’t about that.

Hattie Hill

Oh, no, no. It was really about learning to do your gift. You know, when you when you learn something, then you go, Okay, how do I apply this to the world? And I always love people. I loved rehabilitation. I love watching people grow. And was so excited. I was one of those. And when, once I got my degree, my master’s especially, let’s go make the world better and so that the role found me.

Crayton Webb

And what did that look like?

Hattie Hill

It was great. I moved down by Houston. I was running an office for the Texas Rehabilitation Commission, and the way I got into training is I got promoted from that role to Dallas. That’s how I actually ended up in Dallas. But I remember coming to a training session when the Anatole first opened, when I was a young intern.

Crayton Webb

Well, we won’t count up. That would be impolite.

Hattie Hill

But it was great. And I think it’s, it’s really great in your life when you find what you feel you were born to do. Yeah, and that’s been the gift.

Crayton Webb

So for you, that’s what? Training?

Hattie Hill

It’s really, it’s really the human making the human condition better. When you’re in consulting, you look at a situation, in my case, it’s in the workplace. And one of my big supporters early on was Herb Kelleher, Herb and Colleen, Southwest Airlines was one of our big clients early and once you have Herb Kelleher’s name on your brochure back then, it made all the difference, and it launched me into a lot of other big corporations, but it was really watching people, learn, explore experience, and then seeing if you can find a way to bring people together. So it was more than just sitting through a class. It was creating an experience that will touch your life going forward. So that’s always been my platform.

Crayton Webb

When did you launch Hattie Hill Enterprises?

Hattie Hill

1984.

Crayton Webb

And the whole premise-

Hattie Hill

I was five.

Crayton Webb

I love it. And the whole premise was going into, I mean, you went into IBM and McDonald’s, you mentioned Southwest Airlines, and you were doing leadership training and diversity training.

Hattie Hill

Diversity didn’t even exist then.

Crayton Webb

There was no such thing as DEI.

Hattie Hill

No, no, it was leadership and customer service. And you know, Southwest was big on people and big on customer service. I actually got my start from a friend that I was with over Thanksgiving dinner, and she had just taken on a leadership role at a very conservative organization. And she asked me, you know training, you know how to do that, could you help me prepare something for this new team? She was going to be the first woman, and it was overseeing a group of engineers. And so we got together the day after Thanksgiving. I was like “okay, sure, I’ll help you put something together.” You know, you need to do some interviews, focus groups, the typical consulting things that we do, and I walked her through the process, and she said, “Okay, here’s the date we want to meet.” And I’m like, “okay, I’ll do it for you.” And it was really just to help a friend. And afterwards, we went to dinner, and she said, “By the way, I found out we pay people like you.” And then I was just doing training. I didn’t really understand the consulting model. And so I always say it was the gift that came to me because she said, I said, “What do I have to do?” And then after she paid me, I was like, “okay, we can do this again.” And so I had to go then and learn the business of consulting. That’s the biggest issue. When you figure out what your gift is, then you better go say, “Who’s going to teach me how to make this gift and make my life work and make life work for the people around me enjoy the work?”, but also this is a real business.

Crayton Webb

Well, true enough. And don’t you find that often there are sometimes you’re working for organizations, they don’t have the expertise internally, so they need you. Other times, they do have the expertise internally, but they need that outsider with the credibility and that, you know, to some degree, is helping build reputation internally. Did you see it that way when you were helping these organizations?

Hattie Hill

I was really just doing something where I had the expertise to help, and people needed the help initially, but what I realized was that you-your marketing came in your work. So very similar to your work, when you do a good job, we refer you. Right, right? So it was never where I was out promoting my business that way. It was 90% word of mouth. And back then we had those fancy brochures and you’d get so I was like, okay, but I have to be able to make this a real business. And the hardest decision, because I was okay to go learn, but the hardest decision was when I knew it was time for me to actually start running the business, as opposed to doing the business every day.

Crayton Webb

Was that difficult?

Hattie Hill

Very much so. I mean, when you, when you love what you do, you forget that, for this to actually grow beyond you, and for you to help more people, for you to compound your impact, you’ve got to stop, you know, you’ve got to stop being the secretary, the janitor, all those things. So I had to grow an organization.

Crayton Webb

How you balance that? Because you had a craft, you had an expertise, and obviously you trained others as you scaled Hattie Hill Enterprises, but I don’t know. Did you ever say to yourself, well, I don’t want to be the trial attorney that doesn’t practice law anymore. I don’t want to lose my craft. How did you do that?

Hattie Hill

I raised my prices. You have to elevate your prices, and then you have to get things from people that who understand your work, who understand the mission, who carry the same values and the brand that is important to them. And so I built a consulting team along with the office staff, and we could pick and choose the projects where it was for me to go. And again, that’s why the business of the business is so important, because in consulting, you have to know what it costs you to get up and go out of the office, right? You have to, you’re paying a lot of people, you’re paying taxes and all these great things. And so it was an education.

Crayton Webb

I don’t know if I call them great things. Okay, so we know why they would hire you. Because referral, you do a fantastic job, but what did they need from you? What did you teach them that they weren’t doing already?

Hattie Hill

You know, it’s not so much just necessarily teaching them, it’s that opportunity to take what they think or what’s in a leader’s heart. Like one of the- I remember sitting in Herb Kelleher’s office, and we had a flip chart, and he- we were talking about the typical business model where you had profit on top and customers and people at the bottom. And he’s like, I don’t want to do it like that, Hattie. So it’s like, okay then. And so let’s talk about how you want to do it. And that’s, you’re afraid that that may not work, but you also know that this is the leader’s vision, and you trust the vision, so let’s see how we can make it work. And clearly he was so right, because that became a global cultural model that has literally been in place for years, when people flying in all over the world to participate in Southwest Airlines culture training. So it’s understanding, and even today, what’s the leader’s vision, what’s the CEO’s vision, and then how do you take that vision and help them take it into action?

Crayton Webb

So that’s an example of a great leader who had a great model, and you were not necessarily helping them get back on track, but helping them fulfill their vision. Are there examples of brands you worked with where they were way off track, and what did that look like, and how did you help them pull them back?

Hattie Hill

We were known for back of the house people, and when companies got in trouble, they you know, a many night was at Addison airport or someplace where they’re sending for you and you have to be there in the morning, and that was because someone made a big mistake. I mean, if you listen to the issues now around diversity and equity, inclusion, belonging, I remember the conversation from affirmative action to diversity. And so when companies or especially when leaders make mistakes, they know that it impacts the business. And so how do we, how do we get this on track? So that was generally when I was called out, specifically to get on a plane and show up and try to help mitigate some of the damage and then get them back on track. So we’re a fixer, yeah, leadership disruption, you become a fixer. Because there’s some things where you can say, okay, we can talk this through. We can train this through. And there were others, I’m like, get the lawyers, bring the checkbook. Let’s settle this so we can keep it moving. Because you’re not going to talk we can’t talk our way out of this. We can’t train our way out.

Crayton Webb

Were there any common denominators, like things that you advise that seemed crystal clear to you, or maybe even obvious to an outsider, but when you got in, it wasn’t crystal clear to them, some and on a regular basis, some advice that you felt you continued to give throughout your career consulting, just regardless of how big or small the brand was.

Hattie Hill

I would always say, stop talking and start listening, because very often CEOs, especially in corporate we’re just used to managing things, and even if it’s something you don’t understand, and it’s tough as a CEO of a major corporation to say, I don’t know the solution to this. I don’t know how to fix this. And so, you know, I’ve sat through a lot of expletives and different interesting things, but when you finish all of that, we need to listen. This is about people, and whatever the issue, we’ve got to fix it. Yeah, disruption happens. As long as you work with people, you’re going to have challenges. But our job is to mitigate the literally, we walk in with the lawyers. We’re the people side. They’re the legal side. Let’s mitigate the damage and get back on track as quickly as possible. We’re all human.

Crayton Webb

In addition to your work with, you know, like I said, IBM, McDonald’s, Southwest. I mean, you’re known as a trend breaker, someone who had revolutionary advice. So that’s a great compliment.

Hattie Hill

Thank you.

Crayton Webb

But what does that mean? How do you think you revolutionized the advice you gave to C level executives about running a better ship.

Hattie Hill

You know, where I saw it the most was with the whole transition from affirmative action to diversity. And I remember conversation with Herb. He said, Hattie, what are they talking about? And I said, and I wasn’t even doing the work then, but I had partnered with a person- McDonald’s, and we said, let’s go out and find out who’s doing this work and learn it and see what is the impact to the business. And because I’ve always been an entrepreneur for to you know, to my bones, I think I just love it. Let’s get to the economic impact, if something you’re saying or doing is keeping your people from being productive. Let’s figure out how to get all that back on track. So right now, as we fight about the words, I’m really focused on the work, because you’re going to always have people who are different, age difference, and when we first started talking about the generations, everybody’s like, that’s not going to matter. Does it matter today? So it is really go in with be willing to listen, try to understand, is there an opportunity to meet in the middle? And sometimes I don’t know. We think I’ve got to go one side or the other, and I think the world is built on no ground.

Crayton Webb

Yeah. Right now we are in a very interesting period as it relates to this diversity, equity and inclusion. What’s your take on this after having done this work for so long? And maybe it requires you to define what this work, how you would define what this work is? But I’ll preface my question by saying I had a fascinating interview with someone about having worked in DEI comms for a major entertainment brand, and someone- a friend of mine called me afterwards. He said, I listened to your podcast. He said, I just want to tell you- it’s a man of color. He said, I want to tell you I object to you saying, “isn’t it the right thing to do?” He goes, I don’t think that has anything to do with it in business, it has to do with what brings in more market share. And companies are being foolish, if not stupid, if they don’t think about market share and all the different markets that they could reach if they have a diverse group of individuals at the table. I thought that was fascinating. What’s your take and correct my language, by the way. Please, if I say something that needs to be tweaked, we’ve been friends long time, you of course correct me.

Hattie Hill

Here’s the thing, people get our work done. I can’t do it all by myself. You can’t do it all by yourself. You have people who work for you. I have people work with me. We come up every day and we try to pull the best out in that group so that we can all be productive. And you don’t do that because you’re, you’re, you just want to be nice. You’re doing it because you’re trying to build a business to have an impact on your family, your community. Yeah, so it’s the same, Crayton, and that’s why I think we, we tend to forget that I don’t care who the people are, there’s still people who come in every day to help drive our dream and make that dream a reality, because they work with us. So if it requires me, I just- perfect conversation for today. So Alpha Kappa, Alpha Sorority, Incorporated is in town. Visit Dallas, way back in the day, we were on the board. We were going after diverse organizations, right? We didn’t say, just because their colors are pink and green, we want them here. We want them here, because the economic impact will hit us at about 50 million in a week. I think we have to, I agree with what your person said. It’s great to have the social impact, and it’s great for us to want our communities to grade and that’s where the belonging and inclusion, whatever word you want to use, my honest opinion, as my friend, I will tell you this: arguing over the word diversity, we’re already diverse. It’s already happening. We’ve already gone way past that. The real question that we have to ask ourselves is, how do we come to the table, listen to each other and try to find some common ground to move humanity? That’s what we got to do every day to bring us together, as opposed to pulling us apart. And right now, there’s a lot of pulling apart and picking sides, and I’m just trying to listen, just listen intently and see if there’s any one thing that I can agree with on each side.

Crayton Webb

So if the proponents of DEI had one single organization, and they called you and they said, Hattie Hill, we want you to come in and consult with us. What advice in the current dynamic would you be giving?

Hattie Hill

Well, actually, in the role that I just said yes to as interim CEO, it’s Tourism Diversity Matters. It covers hospitality, travel, tourism, transportation, and events and meetings. So it’s a huge demographic of people, and they’re in the business of people, whether you’re working in my organization, whether we’re giving out the services that we’re all going to be giving out in the city over the next few days with, with this conference in town. And so what I would say is to stop and again, listen, and let’s try to figure out what common ground that we have. We all want to have healthy families. We all want to be a part of a thriving community. We all want to make sure that we have the basic needs and in order to. Do that, we have to continue to grow our economy, to grow our communities, and leave no one behind in that growth. And so that’s what I’m saying to this group that just asked me to help them do that. And we’re trying to expand our businesses. They’re about business growth. We’re not going to say to the organization when they leave town, y’all don’t have to pay just go in our restaurants and eat, right?

Crayton Webb

Go home for free?

Hattie Hill

No, no, no. So it’s getting, a lot of times the rhetoric outweighs the human connection. Let’s get back to the human connection.

Crayton Webb

Now that’s such an important point, and people use short phrases that get everybody going or get folks angry, and it gets everyone riled up. Okay, so what problem in your new role are you helping them try to fix?

Hattie Hill

Oh, real simple workforce. Everybody’s fighting for workforce and talent, and so you, you go into the restaurants now, and half the restaurant, they don’t have people to work because they didn’t have a few people out sick, and that shuts the whole thing down. The challenge for all businesses now is just trying to get talent, and you want talent that connects with everyone from every level, so it’s really helping them to look at the challenges and say, how do we begin to build this talent to move into the workplace? Because if you don’t have people in tourism, you think about tourism, travel. You know, when you walk up to the airplane, do you actually want people to be there to help you?

Crayton Webb

Absolutely. Yeah.

Hattie Hill

It’s really about people. And whoever those people are, what age group you know in terms of their identity, in terms of all the differences, the dimensions of diversity disability. We just launched a disability chamber here in Dallas. So when you talk inclusion, it really is bringing everyone to the table.

Crayton Webb

But with a nonprofit titled tourism, diversity matters, is there a danger that as a nonprofit, you’re positioned as like a watchdog on the industry, and how do you how do you combat that?

Hattie Hill

Well, that’s why they brought me in. So they had some disruption in the organization. They reached out and said, you know, we want to reset the strategy based on today’s environment, and so we’re in the process of going through that now. So we’re really going to research, reset the strategy. Look at how can this organization work collectively to grow talent and make sure that our economy still grow in our community.

Crayton Webb

And so that you become your organization becomes support network of the tourism industry, as opposed to a finger wagging. Enough, right, right? And does this go back to the heart of your advice, listen first?

Hattie Hill

Listen first. Understand what the challenges are, and be willing to listen to everyone. Sometimes the loudest voices get your attention, but it’s the person that’s not screaming so loud that may have the solution. And right now, we need innovation. We need ideas. It’s all hands on deck.

Crayton Webb

So you’ve created a fascinating, in my opinion, niche for yourself. So you know, you’re a serial entrepreneur, but Hattie Hill Enterprises, you were the consultant. You scaled and grew your own firm, but over the last number of years, you know, you wrote a book, yeah, I did, but you’ve taken on three that I’m aware of, major interim CEO roles. So we just talked about your new one, but we but, but, but, and we’ll get to the TD Jakes foundation in just a moment. But you also came in with the Texas Women’s Foundation, a huge fundraising organization where you were asked to take that role. What is it about Hattie Hill that has become kind of the ultimate fractional CEO, right? The fixer? Is it that you are? Hey, no, I don’t want the full-time job. I’m just going to come and be the band-aid, the bridge. How has that become, even from your own branding perspective, kind of a moniker for you?

Hattie Hill

You know, it started, I had sort of semi-retired after being on the road nonstop traveling all over the world, whatever, 70 some countries, wherever we are, and I decided, you know, it’s been great. The corporate, corporate was going through a real adjustment, and it’s no longer doing these big contracts, and I’ll scale the business back down. So we slowly rotated out the consultants. At one point there were 30 consultants, but I slowly brought the business down and was getting it back to just me and two or three other people, which is great in the office staff. And so in 2014 I was on the board of the Women’s Foodservice Forum. And as you remember, the CEO died suddenly. And so it was really my love and appreciation for her and the organization that I said, you know, it’s a good time. I can step away from my day to day and come in as the interim CEO. So it was a six month interim role. Six years later, I retired in 2019 but did good work, get it set up. It’s such a value to the industry. They have a fabulous CEO. And then 2019 is when I came retired to end of 2019 in December, and I was home, taking it easy, and I got a call from my friend, my pastor, TD Jakes.

Crayton Webb

And what did he say?

Hattie Hill

He said, Hattie, what you doing? You know what he said was, he said, I’ve really had this in my brain, in my heart, in my spirit. I want to start trying to understand because STEM is becoming so big, and you’re hearing about it in the community. I want to set up a foundation to really help our young people learn about STEM, and especially the communities of color, poor communities, you know, starting right here at home. And he said, “You’ve been running a foundation, you know how it should work, and I want to do business with corporate America. And so go figure it out, and come back and tell me how that works.” And I said, Yes, sir, I’ll figure it out. I’ll come back and let you know. And so we talked about it. I put together, worked with Ernest and Young was the auditor as they came in, so understanding that if you do business with corporate, you have to be separate from the church. So we went over all the rules. Tolleson came in as our operation from the back. Tolleson Wealth Management, so trusted brands in this community, along with him as a trusted brand. And then we said, what’s the strategy? What do we really want to focus on? And how do we do it? So put everything together. It was going to be a three month deal. Get it all set up. And that’s what I did, kind of over Christmas. We launched in January, and he’s so fun to be around, because we were being interviewed by the Dallas Morning News, and I said, What’s your goal, financial goal for it? And he said, maybe 50 million. I’m like, okay, because you know, it’s him. He’s gonna hire staff. My job is to get the foundation set in terms of the legal pieces and the taxes and all that. So that’s okay, great. So he’s doing the interview with the morning news, and he says 100 million, and I’m sitting up, did he just say 100 million? Okay, we’re gonna have to work a little harder. But we flew into New York, launched it, and, you know, he’s a celebrity, so all the main, you know, the shows and morning shows and all of that, and flew back to Dallas. That was the end of January. February was still out, kind of, you know, really talking about the foundation, and really was getting ready to start putting the pieces together on here’s who you need to hire for the different roles. But right at that point, it was just me and him and COVID hit. And what I admired most is, in the midst of the worst situation, he said, we still need to focus on STEM. Now the, you know, the young people needed computers. We partnered with, I think it was AT&T and the Mavericks, and we were literally up around the clock going, how do we help? We gave out computers at the over at the Potter’s House to and again, he was putting his money into it. He’s like, I’ll help. I’ll do, let’s get some people to help us and go and see how we can help the poorest of the communities. And so we launched an online STEM training, just because he wanted to see how we could have an impact in the midst of COVID. We ended up with 5000 young people from all over the metroplex, all over the country, and 26 other countries, I think, around the world. So yeah. I mean his, his, his brand is just huge. And so we knew it was something important that we needed to do, and but at that point, because of the pandemic, it just wasn’t the right time for me to step back and leave him out there by himself. So the goal was, let’s get us ready, get find a great corporate partner, which we did, and as we were leaving, we launched a relationship with the new CEO. Wells Fargo committed 10 million for 10 years, and they’re doing amazing work. Just finished up a summer camp. I’m just proud. Yeah.

Crayton Webb

Okay, so for the those people who don’t know who TD Jakes is, give us the background. How would you describe, you mentioned larger than life. We talked to the beginning about 30,000 parishioners with the Potter’s House.

Hattie Hill

Right. You know it’s I would describe him in so many different ways, because people here, especially locally, they know him from the Potter’s House, but I actually got to know him from the business community. And from his businesses. So his entertainment business is, you know, books and so I kind of knew it from a distance, because I didn’t go to Potter’s House, as a matter of fact, on on the board of visit Dallas when they did mega fest, was when I really first got to know his businesses. But he is, is not only a faith leader, entrepreneur, is one of the biggest brands in the world. I mean, he is just, he’s, he’s, when I listen to him talk about the difference he wants to make in the world, it’s now, we were in Kenya, for example, partnering with some people there on STEM you don’t, there’s no place you go, that you don’t say the name TD Jakes, that people don’t know who you’re talking about. But to his heart, he’s a pastor. He’s truly a faith leader that cares about people. But on top of that, he’s also a smart businessman, and that’s one thing I learned traveling with him, working with him, he’s a smart businessman, but his heart is, will always be the heart of a pastor.

Crayton Webb

You know, you say that. And I think of, you know, well, I’m an Episcopalian, so I think of my priest, and it’s unfair, you they put that collar on, right, whether they wear one or not, you know, if they’re a pastor. And you just assume they know everything, right, that they that they’re clairvoyant in some way. And then you just describe this individual who is larger than life. Weren’t there so many times, or were there times where you thought, what does he need me for? What can I- I mean, you’re smart, really smart. You’ve advised so many CEOs. But were there times where you thought, he knows all this already?

Hattie Hill

You know, one of the things that I admired about him, because, you know, I knew him as the pastor of the church, but the I got to know him as the chairman of the of the TD Jakes group, which includes all other, all of his businesses, the enterprise, the foundation, the there’s a they have a group called good soil, which they help entrepreneurs. You’ve got mega care, which is giving back to the community, but he manages that through other people really well, and he would always tell us our job was to take weight off of him. So you know, how should we be doing this? I was never around him without a pen on a piece of paper. I had a notepad all the time because his quick mind. He’s always working. He’s always thinking, and he asked lots of questions, even though I think he’s, you know, the smartest guy in the room all the time. But he would say, Well, now, Hattie, how does this work? And you know, you’ve been around the business community, what do they do about this? Or how would they think about this? So it was, it was, I was learning and working all the time.

Crayton Webb

Yeah. So you go out, you’re trying to raise $100 million. Right. A goal. It probably wasn’t on the fly.

Hattie Hill

He just told me, yeah.

Crayton Webb

How do you help develop a brand and a reputation for a foundation that has and holds the name of someone that is already world famous?

Hattie Hill

Well, it was really I didn’t have to really develop the brand. My first job was to make sure that his business, the business of the foundation, was secure, so that when Wells Fargo asked us to send them our documentation, our taxes, the 1099 says you got to make sure, when you’re dealing with corporate that your business is important, that you have those documents in play, and a lot of nonprofits don’t have those documents in play. So the business first was, he knew I could get that accomplished for him, the financials, all of those things that they needed to be successful. The other piece was, there’s so many places we can focus. So where do we want to put our talent and our time and our energy? And he really wanted, he started the STEM camp. They continued to do it today. Workforce. We partnered with the city of Dallas, Lynn McGee and her team to get do literally just job fairs so that people could find jobs, especially after COVID, because they had lost the some of the jobs that went away. And so he would always say, how do we make it better? How do I use my platform to level it up? And he was, he continues to be awesome in that way.

Crayton Webb

Was there ever a time that he didn’t take your advice and he was right to not take it? Or was there ever a time he didn’t take your advice and he was wrong?

Hattie Hill

You know, I am sure there were probably both. But he we would we had conversation. The one value of traveling with him is that we would have conversation of just about different things, and then I would write all the conversation down, because in that conversation, you would get the vision that he was trying to accomplish. And so I was like, Okay, now I hear that if we do it this way, we can go this way, this way. And he’s like, okay, great. And he knew I knew the corporate world. He knew that was a place I was very comfortable, and he had other things he was working on. So the one thing I’ve enjoyed working with him and his whole team, across the whole group, is everybody had their roles, and we all knew what we had to go do, and, you know, sometimes we’d come together, and sometimes we were working totally separate.

Crayton Webb

What did you learn from him or observe from him that you would advise others? Let’s call them CEOs or even faith leaders, but regardless of what sector they’re in, behavior that that you would recommend they emulate.

Hattie Hill

You know, I felt like he was always open to an idea. He’s an idea guy, and he is so like, Okay, how could we make that work? So he the one thing that I’m always like, okay, everything’s got to be 12345, and he’d be like, well, let’s throw it out there and then see what happens. And I probably learned more of that from him, that everything doesn’t have to be to the nth detail. But also he knew that if he gave me something, I’d go research and come back and say, These are the ways that we could make it happen. So it was just a it was a joy to watch him work, and it was a joy to watch his businesses grow. And there wasn’t a better place to be during COVID than a part of not only just the ministry piece, but there was a whole platform of people who were coming together on Zoom to try to get people to understand what was happening in the country and in the world, so that it was a great time to see him at his best.

Crayton Webb

You hear a lot these days the term thought leader, and it’s, you know, common theme, and people talk to us all the time. I want to be a thought leader. I want to be well known for being an expert in a certain area of all the CEOs you’ve worked with, and they may not have used the term thought leader, but what is the common denominator that they all have that helped make them an expert?

Hattie Hill

You know what I would say from the years of being in this work? It’s the strategy. It’s coming up, looking at something, what made Herb Kelleher look at something and say, “I want to flip the model, and it’ll be okay”, you know, what, what, what made the, you know, McDonald’s say, “we want to do this different than anybody else”, and now everybody copies them. I mean, it is a leader that’s willing to say, what if? And I’ve found that with a lot of amazing leaders, and I want to be that type of a leader. What if we just tried it a different way and you end up opening yourself up to hear? Yeah.

Crayton Webb

Yeah. you’ve done that. Of course. You were chair of the board for the Dallas Convention Visitors Bureau, now known as visitors Dallas, third busiest airport in the world. Where do you think your expertise helped that organization in Dallas developing its brand as a destination?

Hattie Hill

You know, it’s interesting. That’s a great question, because the former CEO, we were at lunch one day, and again, he was a thought leader and a visionary. And he said, “You know, I want to start getting more diverse groups in the city, and I’m not sure exactly how to do this,” and the whole mega fest, and meeting with, back to TD Jakes, meeting with TD Jakes, building a relationship with them to bring mega fest, all sort of started with that conversation at lunch, and I said, What can I do to support you? And so one of the things we realized that the destination marketing world did not have anything really around diversity and inclusion. There were no chief diversity officers like there were in corporate and so we started to do research, and I said, Do you, you need to have a person focused on this every day like anything else. And Cheryl Richards, I’m very proud of Cheryl, because she was the first Chief Diversity Officer for a destiny for a destination marketing organization in the country. Yeah, and they’ve continued. And the whole idea was not just going after diversity for diversity’s sake. The goal was to go after businesses to help grow the economy in the city, and that’s what we’ve done. Yeah. So that was a big one, and we did, we did the same thing four years ago, with Dallas Regional Chamber and put in their diversity department, worked with the CEO, with Dale Petrovsky at the time, John Olajide was the chair of the board, and now sent Marshall Yes. And so what, what, what I find is that we all work, if we work this together, we’re better a Dallas chamber run chamber of the year. But two years ago, because of a lot of this work, Dale Petrovsky is totally focused on, you know, building our economic well-being and standing in the nation, and he’s doing an awesome job of that. So it is, it’s all of us putting our hands in and our thoughts in to say, how do we make it better?

Crayton Webb

You wrote a book, and a lot of thought leaders write books. Write books or decide, okay, this is the avenue that we’re going to go down. We’re going to try to put all of our thoughts and expertise on paper, and that’s going to launch a speaking career, or, you know, invitations to fledgling podcasts. So why did you write a book? How did that go for you?

Hattie Hill

You know, it was fun for me, just because first, it was my third and so I’ve always enjoyed writing that’s just to get it out of my head and on paper, and I have another one that I produced yet that’s that’s sitting on the shelf, that’s gonna when I get out of these CEO roles, I’ll get it finished. But I love to take the best of people when I’m out doing what I do, and saying, how, how can I make that forever ingrained in my brain and, kind of, in the brains of other people? And that you can do that through writing. Well, now you can do it through podcast, you can do it through all kinds of other things, but it’s, I always, there’s therapy for me in writing.

Crayton Webb

What advice would you give a leader who is thinking about pursuing a book?

Hattie Hill

Oh, you know what I would say? First of all, decide within your platform what impact you wanted to have. You know you impact people, you expect, processes, whatever it is that you do. And then I start real simple, like 10 notes that you want to put down. 10 points don’t, don’t try to write a book. Sit down tomorrow and write a book. It is, you know what? This is, something like. I have this whole thing about doing compound interest. Everything I do needs to compound to something else. At this age and stage of my life, everything matters, right? So you’re, you’re leaving a legacy, you’re seeing the next generation. Well, I’ll write about that, or put a note about it, and just stick it in a folder, and you’ll come back to it, and you’d be surprised how quickly you get a book. Just from your experiences and the people that you’ve, that you’ve been around.

Crayton Webb

Well, and you kind of have something to say already right, or belief or a principle, right, and then the stories kind of back up. I would imagine your point like if you said you had 10 points, and then you’ve got years and years of experiences and stories to fill. Kind of put the meat on the bone. Is that right?

Hattie Hill

Right. Yeah, because you look for people like I always, if I have an idea like from I want to find like-minded people, and then I listened to see, okay, what is it about that that made them really get excited? And how can I get excited? My mother used to say, you listen for that. There’s always this silver lining in everything, and you listen and look for that every time. And that’s where the magic is. It’s not in all the big- the big stuff.

Crayton Webb

Did you ever make a mistake?

Hattie Hill

Always. Are you kidding me? Was that like this morning? Oh, absolutely. You know, we were taught early on. So single mother farm, go back to that little circle moment. Yeah, my mother said, I don’t mind if you fail, but you better fall forward. And so I’ve been living that my entire life. So you fall forward, you get better, you learn, you ask questions, learning how to do everything from a business perspective, I had to listen to other people. I’d make mistakes, learning to manage finances in this whole world of consulting. I never heard that before. So everything was, listen, fall forward and make it work.

Crayton Webb

Yeah? Mary Kay Ash used to turn used the term fail forward. Fail forward, right? So meaning you failed, but you learned something exactly, and you took the next step forward. Okay, we got a lightning round. So we do this with every guest. So these questions are just for you. First of all, number one piece of leadership advice you would give?

Hattie Hill

Breathe.

Crayton Webb

What does that mean?

Hattie Hill

Just stop and just breathe. There’s so much happening. It’s moving so fast right now. We just need to stop and breathe, yeah, and just think. And here, listen to yourself first, because that’s who I have to manage every day when I get up, take a breath. You know, if you panicked, like you saw something last week that made you panic, or yesterday, or whenever. Communication. Just stop and breathe. Just stop and breathe. I don’t have to own all of this. I don’t have to solve all of this today. The world is still going to turn on its axis tomorrow and just stop and breathe and then think it through in terms of what do I need to do about this, or is this just another data point for today? Because right now, we’re inundated with these data points, and so just stop and breathe.

Crayton Webb

Okay, so now I have to ask you the same question, but with a different lens, because you’ve done so much leadership work around women and women’s empowerment, absolutely. Of course, I worked at Mary Kay for 12 years, right? So my mind, a lot, of lot of our leaders at Sunwest, the majority, are all women. Do you? Do you have different advice as it relates to women in leadership?

Hattie Hill

Oh, no. Women really need to stop and breathe, you know, because we’re so fast, we’re moving all the time. I mean, it’s, we had this conversation a lot at Texas Women’s Foundation is, let’s just settle down, not try to solve everything today, because we are in this multitasking process, right? And so for us, it’s even more important to stop, take a breath, be present, because we spend most of our time not being present, moving from one thing to the next and then coming up with what’s the best decision that I really need to make around whatever the issue of the day is, and that’s how I try to start my morning. Just calm down, take the news off, pull away. Take a breath. Think through what is important today. I get to go see Crayton.

Crayton Webb

Lucky me. Seriously. Okay, so you mentioned issues of the day. Number one piece of advice you’d give to a leader who cares very much about diversity, right? Because they believe a diverse group of minds, perspectives and backgrounds equals the best ideas. As John Elijah Day says, the best ideas bubble up to the top, but is scared of the current political climate around DEI. What advice would you give?

Hattie Hill

Focus on the work, let the words take care of themselves. So what is the work that your team is trying to do when they come in every day? I’m trying to help employees feel like they belong. We’re trying to get this business from this group of women that are in town for this conference focus on the work and the words will take care of themselves.

Crayton Webb

Okay, great. That may have been a slightly autobiographical question. Maybe. Neither confirm nor deny. What, you had an interaction with Oprah.

Hattie Hill

Oh gosh. Lots of interaction. Yeah. Well, when you work with Jakes. Come on.

Crayton Webb

Okay, fair enough. What was that like?

Hattie Hill

Oh, Oprah’s great. You know I had an interaction with Oprah way back years and years ago, before that and and the first time I met her, I was actually in her office, because I knew Stedman, and he had walked me over to her office in Chicago. And this was way before she was, you know, as big as she is now, but she had gone to Rome for something for Quincy Jones, I’ll never forget, because it impacted me so because I was saying I had just come back from italy working, and I was tired, and she said, Yeah, me too. And I said, Yeah, but you probably traveled a little differently than me. And I remember she kind of put her head up and looked at me, and she said, Yeah, but it didn’t change the miles, yeah. And so the humanity of Oprah, I’ve always appreciated the work she’s done for women, the work she’s done for the world. I mean, she was just so impactful. But the way I saw her and Jake’s really come together and have a huge impact. I mean, it’s just been amazing, and especially for women, because, you know, we’re all going through some of the same things, even she’s going through it now. So we just all have to remember to stop breathe, listen to your body, listen to your mind, listen to your heart, and then decide where you go from there.

Crayton Webb

Okay, best part about Marianna, Arkansas?

Hattie Hill

Oh, the people. It’s our little village. So where we our farm is the town is called Moro, M O, R, O, where I went to high school is Marianna, but it is a village of people that you could go back to, no matter how successful, no matter how broke, no matter how happy, no matter how sad I will my mother passed away in 2020, but there will always be a village there for us. And, yeah, that’s cool.

Crayton Webb

Alright. These are the questions we ask everybody. So we’ll go a little faster. Fire, fire, fire away. What was your favorite subject in school?

Hattie Hill

History.

Crayton Webb

What did you major in college? You said this already.

Hattie Hill

Yeah, undergraduate political science and history, Master’s: counseling, rehabilitation.

Crayton Webb

Favorite holiday?

Hattie Hill

Christmas! Oh, I love Christmas. Oh, you don’t even want to know.

Crayton Webb

Favorite hobby?

Hattie Hill

Oh, reading.

Crayton Webb

Favorite guilty pleasure?

Hattie Hill

Ice cream.

Crayton Webb

You have a favorite brand?

Hattie Hill

Favorite brand.

Crayton Webb

Women’s clothes, technology, some, something.

Hattie Hill

You know, I’ve never been a big brand girl, never a big shopper, but you know, I’ll take, I’ll take Tory Burch, since they just partnered with the Texas Women’s Foundation fundraiser, how’s that?

Crayton Webb

You’re smart. Favorite movie?

Hattie Hill

Oh, gosh. Of all times, let’s see which one would I say, because I have several favorite favorites on a funny day, still, Steel Magnolias.

Crayton Webb

Oh, there you go. I always like that saying “he doesn’t know whether to wind his [bleep] or scratch his watch.”

Hattie Hill

I know right. You know when they’re in the parking lot and the girl is trying to she hits her car and she said, Oh, women got insurance. You’re just at that point for life is different decision. Okay, what else?

Crayton Webb

Favorite day of the week?

Hattie Hill

Oh, Sunday. Sunday. My day where I go to church, take off, try not to work and enjoy the time.

Crayton Webb

Good for you. Hidden superpower? Hidden talent?

Hattie Hill

Sleep.

Crayton Webb

Yeah? You’re a superpower sleeper?

Hattie Hill

My superpower is sleep. Because you know what, I am so good when I rest, yeah. And I finally figured out that you, you literally, you’re so, all my, everything’s firing. Everything’s working good. Yeah, if I don’t get a good night’s rest.

Crayton Webb

How many hours do you get?

Hattie Hill

I’m a good seven, eight.

Crayton Webb

Good for you. Okay. Last question, if you could pick one person living or dead that you could have dinner with, who would it be?

Hattie Hill

Oh, my momma. I’m sorry. Oh, don’t even get me going. I’ll be crying.

Crayton Webb

She’s smiling down.

Hattie Hill

Yeah, oh yeah, that yeah, it’d be my mother, because that was my heart.

Crayton Webb

Hattie. You are, talk about full of heart. You’re wonderful. And I think our guests can see why you’re a fast friend to anyone who knows you and clearly have more than an hour worth of advice that goes well beyond reputation and brand. It’s just about life. So thank you, my friend, for joining us. Thank you all for joining us on reputation matters. Be sure to check us out at sunwestpr.com or on LinkedIn for other episodes of reputation matters, and we’ll see you next time.