S2:E24 Diversidad e inclusión en la industria del mantenimiento con Charli K. Matthews

Charli K. Matthews is the CEO and Founder of Empowering Brands !  

Summary

In this week's episode of Masterminds in Maintenance, we are excited to have Charli Matthews, CEO and Founder of Empowering Brands, on the show! Charli shares with Ryan her thoughts on diversity, inclusion, and equity in the maintenance and skilled trades industry, as well as advice for women who are interested in joining the space! Listen today!

[Embedded content: https://anchor.fm/upkeep/embed/episodes/S2E24-Diversity-and-Inclusion-in-the-Maintenance-Industry-with-Charli-K--Matthews-eoas4a]

Episode Show Notes

• Steps towards a more diverse company

• Empowering women in a male-dominated industry 

• Bringing equity into maintenance organizations 

Podcast Platforms

• Anchor FM

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• YouTube

Transcript

0:00:04.5 Ryan Chan: Welcome to Masterminds in Maintenance, a podcast for those with new ideas in maintenance. I'm your host, Ryan. I'm the CEO and Founder of UpKeep. Each week, I'll be meeting with a guest who's had an idea for how to shake things up in the maintenance and reliability industry. Sometimes the idea failed, sometimes it made their business more successful, and other times their idea revolutionized an entire industry. Today, I'm super excited. We've got Charli Matthews here on the show. Charli is the CEO and Founder of Empowering Brands, including Empowering Pumps and Equipment and Empowering Women in Industry. Welcome to the show, Charli. I'm really excited to have you.

0:00:37.7 Charli Matthews: I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me, and I just am amazed at all the wonderful things you're doing.

0:00:43.5 RC: How did you make your way into this wonderful field of maintenance and reliability, and how did you get first introduced? 

0:00:52.1 CM: When I was in college, I was an administrative assistant for a pump magazine, and what I found out was I loved watching what they did in sales. So it was basically advertising sales for pump manufacturers and sealing at that time. So I jumped in and I loved it. And I would say what introduced me to the maintenance world though was this pump expo, a hands-on trade show, where I got to go and see what a mechanical seal was. I was just fascinated with the equipment and I loved it. And my job was really to build relationships to be able to sell people, advertising. But once you get in there, you just fall in love with the people and the work that they're doing.

0:01:37.7 CM: So I'll say the rest is history for that, but I did wanna talk a little bit about reliability. There was this book, and it was my very first audiobook, and it was Don't Just Fix It, Improve It. I don't know, I think some of our listeners will have listened to that before, but that was my first introduction into reliability. And what struck me was it really is in everything that we do from just things around the house and you wanna improve something, you don't wanna just know why it broke, you wanna know... Well, you do wanna know why it broke, you wanna know what the root cause is. And so that was my first introduction to that world, and understanding that it takes changing people's minds to change the company culture. And I was just... I was hooked from that. So two different worlds, one is the very hands-on and the other one is that theory of we've gotta change people's minds in order to improve our businesses.

0:02:36.3 RC: So, Charli, I know that one of your brands is called Empowering Women in Industry. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your story and thoughts on diversity in this industry, being a woman in a typically male-dominated field.

0:02:51.8 CM: It can be intimidating, but I think if you know what you wanna do, you're passionate about coming into the industry, then I say come and join us. There are plenty of women out in our industry. I think that the advice that I would give is to find a community, to find women in our industry to connect with so that you're not alone. In my first 10 years of the business, I was trying to push and make changes, and then it became very clear that I was the only woman speaking up in the room or I was the only one that was having pushback, and that's a different challenge. That is something that makes you stop, turn around and say, "Okay, how can I improve myself?" But I think that the main way to make it in our industry is to have mentors and support around us. I think that's true for anybody, but being a woman in the industry, I found that I didn't even realize that I had missed it, that I had missed this camaraderie with women, because I was just doing the job. And I think so many times, women just get in there, they put their heads down and they try to work harder and better to get things done.

0:04:06.7 CM: And we forget that we are women in this industry, and there are different interests and different things that we want, and different trials that we may have, and to have a woman that you can talk to, it really does make a world of difference. I didn't have that. Like I said, I came out of finance and the business world, and I was selling advertising, so building relationships, and what I was taught was, they're gonna buy from you if they know, like, and trust you. And so I wanted everyone to like me, no matter what. I would do whatever interests that person had, and the majority of the time it would have been a man on the other end of that, so we would either go to a sports bar or something like that. That's where our dinner is. Where some of us ladies might wanna go and have some wine in a nice, quaint place. It's just a little different sometimes. But I would encourage you to find that niche, and if you love mechanical things and reliability and talking shop, there are women out there that also like to talk about those type of things. And thankfully, we've also created Empowering Women in Industry, but once you start looking, there are tons of groups and tons of different organizations that you can find that community with somebody. And that's what I think that if I could do it again, I would have been looking for those mentors and resources earlier.

0:05:32.5 RC: Obviously, you started this brand, Empowering Women in Industry, and what I was gonna say is I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I'm guessing that a big part of that inspiration of starting that brand was helping others find that camaraderie, helping others build that community.

0:05:47.8 CM: It absolutely is. That's one part, that getting together and being able to see each other, but I also wanted the tools. I wanted to be able to get better as a leader. In this particular case, when I started this group, women came to me and said that I was their leader, and I'm like, "What? What is a leader? And why is that directed at me all of a sudden?" But then I was like, "Okay, how do I get better at communicating for this group? How do I get better at running my business so we're more effective and we can reach more people?" And so I always say, "Yes, I'm the leader, but I'm learning right there with you," and that's part of it.

0:06:26.7 RC: The Empowering Brands has such an empowering mission behind it, and I think it really puts a spotlight on diversity, how everyone's different, and how everyone needs different resources in order to be successful. So I guess the main question here is: What do you think maintenance and trades companies can implement so that diversity, inclusion, equity all become part of this integral piece of the organization? 

0:06:52.4 CM: A lot of it is that we need to be able to have access to this kind of table, access to the tools that we need to succeed, and so that's different in every one of these kind of categories or job experiences. But at the end of the day, if somebody is trying to grow in an area, they should have access to that tool and they should be given that opportunity to learn 'cause some of the times when we get to the top, especially for women, the C-suite is dominated by males. We also need to look at once we get everyone in the room, let's say we have a diverse team, is everybody being heard? Is everybody having the same opportunity? Is everyone allowed access to the leadership? They may need something that we're not thinking about, so the diversity of thought is also very important, that we hear from everyone to make those better decisions.

0:07:42.2 CM: I've seen so many different organizations with all white males in this leadership role, and I have nothing against white males, I wanna say that, but at the end of the day, they don't know what a woman might need in that situation, they don't know what people of color might need in that situation. So it's things that you don't recognize when there's not other people that aren't like you in the room. And that's not just race or gender. It could be having your engineering team talk to the operators and maintenance, having everybody talk to each other across those different skill sets and jobs, and then we can come up with a plan that can lead to more efficient systems.

0:08:29.1 RC: This idea of diversity of thought and creating this open dialogue where anyone can speak their mind always leads to better decisions being made, and I think that's something that often gets overlooked, is the importance of diversity of thought. What are some actions, what are common pieces of advice that you give to companies that want to put a bigger focus and emphasis on diversity within a workforce? 

0:08:56.4 CM: It starts with leadership, and leadership has to be on board, but some of the advice that I would give is that you're not really going after a target market, you're not going after to bring in diversity to your organization. You're looking at what you have and looking at how can you interact and add value to other people? And that's gonna come naturally. You're gonna naturally... For example, I'll give you an example. We were looking for a more diverse committee for Empowering Women. We had different skill sets, different nationalities, but we didn't have women of color represented on our committee. I said, "Okay, how do you get to that?" And there's no getting that as a target. What you do is you start including people. And so the one thing that we did was reach out to have women of color that were speakers. It was intentional, but we were including them in what we were trying to do. So you would see them on our committee, you would see them as part of our speakers. So then we had pictures that represented everyone just by actively and intentionally going out there and practicing what you preach, if you will, but going out there and looking for opportunities to bring people together that are different than you.

0:10:19.0 RC: I think what you defined there was exactly centered around this idea around inclusion. It's not just this like, "Alright, cool, I got a quota to fill." It's we gotta start with including others that might have not been included otherwise, and that's the base foundation that you can't... You can't skip levels.

0:10:41.5 CM: Yeah, and I'll add one more thing there. We talk about equity a lot, and I think of this a lot. I was unclear about it myself, because in the workforce, it can't be equality. It's not like our rights. Like, yes, we should all have equal rights, but we have to actually go a little extra effort to recruit the people and to get the people in our organizations to make it diverse. Not that we should have different treatment. We have to focus on that and bring attention to that, and that doesn't feel equal all the time, but until you get to a part where the percentages are more even, then it makes more sense to have everybody equal. But right now they're just so off that it's gonna feel like it's not being treated equal, and that's how we're creating this equity term that you hear a lot.

0:11:32.3 RC: Question here: What keeps you continuing to fight for this cause to see more women in diversity in the maintenance reliability industry? 

0:11:40.2 CM: This easy one is my daughter. I have a 10-year-old daughter, and then I have two sons. But my daughter, she's the one, she's my little cheerleader and she is like, "You're the boss," and she says all these empowering things to me, so she definitely gives me this encouragement. But at the end of the day, I want a better world for her, I want her to be able to, first of all, know about manufacturing, know about maintenance and reliability or engineering or just any of these jobs that weren't even on the radar for me at all when I went to college.

0:12:13.1 CM: Also, I went through this. I love my career. I was top salesperson, and I had built many, many relationships, and I adore the industry. I love it so much. But when I started trying to push and make change and for the good... We knew social media was gonna be a big deal 10 years ago, and so as I was trying to push our industry forward, I realized I didn't have the tools or the support to get these things across the line. And so what I wanted to... What drives me is to make sure there's not a woman out there who is so passionate about what she's doing that doesn't have the opportunity to gain the skills to sit at the table, and especially that woman out there that knows what she's talking about and that she can't be heard. So my job is to give her a voice and to support her with tools and resources and a network so that we can make a better world.

0:13:09.8 RC: That's awesome. It's such a good story, Charli, and I'm very, very happy to have you as part of this voice trying to make the world a better place. Last quick question around the maintenance reliability space: What's something you wish more people knew about our industry? 

0:13:28.8 CM: I wrote something down on this one. It was the best practices that can be taught and used, but best practice is what we all need. We all need to be able to have access to that, and I think this... I mean, y'all are just a wealth of information, and so every time I get to learn something, I just am inspired to keep going and to effect change in a different way. But at the end of the day, y'all are making our world run and it makes sense to amplify or highlight or whatever you wanna call it, to shine the light and make sure that you have what you need in that maintenance and reliability world.

0:14:10.1 RC: How can all of our listeners follow you on your journey and connect with you? 

0:14:14.1 CM: I would say just connect with me. Charli K. Matthews, mostly on all the channels. And you can follow our other channels @EmpoweringPumps, @EmpoweringBrands, @EmpoweringWomeninIndustry. But yeah, I'm an open connector so please say hey on LinkedIn, and I'll be happy to connect with you.

0:14:35.2 RC: Awesome. And thank you again, Charli, for joining us, and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to today's Masterminds in Maintenance. My name is Ryan, I'm the CEO and Founder of UpKeep. You can also connect with me. I'm very active on LinkedIn, and you can also shoot me an email directly at [email protected]. You can find me and Charli in the maintenance community on Slack, the largest online community for maintenance professionals around the world, where we host weekly conversations and contests all centered around maintenance. I hope to connect with all of you guys soon. Until next time, thanks again, Charli.

0:15:04.7 CM: Bye, thanks.

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