- Welcome to innovating the future.

I'm Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America.

America is renewing itself.

It's creating new spaces out of old buildings, and re-building downtown's across the country.

It's re-inventing factories, farms, transportation, schools, and in the case of Arizona State University, higher education itself.

It made be hard to see the outlines of a renewed America, through the clouds of our national politics, but we'll show them to you.

We won't sugar coat our problems, instead we'll confront them head on.

We're looking for ideas that will help us solve those problems with the optimism, and patriotism necessary to move us forward.

Today we're talking to Tyra Mariani, the president of New America and my close colleague.

We're going to talk about the new generation of leaders, and leadership.

Tyra, welcome.

- It's a pleasure to be here.

- It's great to have you.

So let's start just, tell me about yourself.

Tell me about your career, and where you came from, and how you've gotten to where you are right now.

- Yeah, so I have to start with I was born and raised in New Orleans.

Two parent household, my father was a blue collar worker, he was a switchman for the railroad.

And my mother worked for an insurance company as a customer service rep.

Between the two of them, my mother reminds me regularly how she sacrificed to send me to catholic school in New Orleans, which really is foundational to what I have been able to accomplish today.

Because I went to a place that was a college prep university, or high school rather, but I decided to go away for school.

I wanted to go to a historically black college or university.

I wanted to go away, I was highly independent, and so quite frankly, it was all about getting out of my parents home.

I knew I had to go some place good, and so I ended up choosing Howard university.

In part, my parents were not college educated, I didn't have a ton of exposure, I didn't visit colleges and universities at all.

- Washington, D.C.

- That was it!

- A far way away, yeah.

- Right, and those other experiences were limited enough, that I, you'll laugh at this, but I thought that the rest of the country was just like what New Orleans was.

- You're right!

(laughter) Having visited New Orleans, that is not true!

- Very different.

I remember running to the college cafeteria because I think it said it was red beans and rice that day, and I was like "oh!

Red beans and rice!"

and it was really though a west Indian version of rice and peas, where it's like mostly rice, with some kidney beans stuck in.

- And New Orleans takes there red beans and rice very seriously!

- It's a gravy, it's all about it, right?

So that was my first awakening to realizing that actually the rest of the world is quite different.

And ever since then I have a curiosity about exploring other places and other cultures.

Very much in the U.S.

is part of that, but also globally as well, because it was such a limited exposure.

- And you actually then went, from one coast to the other.

- I went from one coast to the other, yep.

In between, I was a business major, and I did that for a couple of years, but I'm standing on the loading dock of an engine company, doing indirect supply chain, and thought there has to be more to life than this.

And that was the pivotal moment for me, I can picture it like it was yesterday, where I then took a step back to think about what I enjoy doing, and what I enjoy doing was when we were in the office on Friday's, I spent an hour, consultants were able to do junior achievement.

And I went into second grade classroom, and I talked to them about community every week.

And so it was then that I realized it was everything I was doing outside of work, instead of work itself, that was fulfilling me, and I decided to go to business school, which is when I then go to the other coast, of Standford.

That I decide to use business school.

I think I had a sense early on that I was called to leadership.

I didn't know exactly for what, but I knew I wanted to do something good, I knew I wanted to make a difference.

I decided I would use my business school experience, recognizing management would be valuable regardless of where I went.

To figure out exactly what I wanted to do, but using those skills as part of it.

- It's interesting, because having served on private sector boards, that to me is something you see in the private sector, you don't see in the non-private sector, mostly because we don't have the money to do it, - That's right.

- But this very intentional, how are you going to develop, important because you're investing in employees, and you want them to develop, that's your investment.

But also this succession planning, because your beholded to your shareholders, and a good manager thinks about "If I'm hit by a bus, what happens?"

and similarly for people down the chain.

So it's just part of the culture in a way that is helpful for all organizations, but actually non-profits, and we need it, we just can't afford it.

- No, I mean we're too busy trying to raise money for the next month, and do the work itself.

And the work is so urgent, and important, not that it isn't in the private sector, but it just has a different sense of urgency if you're serving kids, or homeless people, or jobless people, right?

Taking the time to step back to say, what do you need to be the best person, and how do we make sure you get the development, it just doesn't happen in the way that it should.

- Exactly, you didn't just make a pivot into public education, you made a pivot into the Chicago public school system which in some ways has been ground zero for what is wrong with public education in the United States, what could be right.

Arnie Dunken, who you worked for in the department of education, comes out of Chicago, so you really.. - The belly of the beast, I called it.

- Exactly, you jumped into the cauldron.

- I did, yes.

- But you didn't jump in as a teacher, so talk about what you did there.

- So I must say, I still say it today, I did not have the gift of being a teacher.

And I do think it's a gift, when you think about the people who work with our kids day in and day out, some of them with 20 kids, 30 kids.

- What's interesting again, as you described the way that your career has evolved, it's leaders are made, not born.

You're talking about the road, the fellowship, very intentionally, thinking about what do leaders need, same thing even at craft, there's set of skills, and a set of experiences and maybe not everyone has that gift, but its not that you're just born a leader.

- No, there is an intentionality to it, as part of that.

Absolutely.

So I did that, and quite frankly hurricane Katrina hit, I happened to be visiting my parents at the time that the storm hit, and I saw first hand what was happening there.

I remember coming back to Chicago, at this point the water is clearly going to be there for several days, there's nothing I can do.

I do have a job (laughs) and I'd already been there quite a bit, and- - You're parents were not affected directly, or where they?

- They were not.

So I evacuated with my parents, my brother stayed behind.

So my mother unfortunately had that moment of panic, wondering if he was okay, because all communication was lost.

But fortunately everyone's lives were saved, but we did lose our home, we lost everything in our home, we got six feet of water.

So we end up literally kind of Baton Rouge, long story short, by way of Mississippi.

(laughs) and we bump into my uncle's in-law's and we end up staying at the neighbors of my uncle's in-law's during all this devastation.

Anyway, end up several days later returning to Chicago, and it was so weird I'd felt like I had been in a third world country, here we are in U.S.

soil.

I show up in Chicago, where I think there was a Sox game that day, because I remember getting off the train and everyone was just sort of going about their business.

It was just such a surreal experience for me.

And as you can imagine, because my family was impacted, I wanted to go back and help.

But to know me, is to know that to cut houses is not the sustainable (laughs) route for me.

- You were not Habitat for Humanity.

- Not on a long term basis, but on a short term basis.

As what I would call divine intervention, I got a call from John Schnur, who at the time was the CEO of new leaders for new schools, to start new leaders in New Orleans.

So I thought this is the way that I help rebuild my hometown.

- Right.

- What better way can you give the people there a different set of opportunities than by giving them high quality education, right?

Where they have opportunity, they have great jobs, they have the means to leave the city, should something like this ever happen again.

So I wanted to be a part of that reform, in a much more systemic and sustainable way.

Which is when I then moved to New Orleans to do that work.

- Then again, new schools for new leaders, its very interesting.

So its education, but it's education with a concept and the idea of being a leader.

Which I again, I think is very important, and you and I are both women, and certainly when I was growing up in Virginia, I didn't think of myself as a leader, I didn't know any women leaders.

It wasn't until my late thirties that I actually started to think of that as part of my identity.

So part of it is culture of you're going to go to school now, and you're going to go to collage, and you can be a leader in your life.

And again, not everyone's a leader, you have to have followers.

Leaders and followers depend on each other.

There's this linkage of education and leadership.

- That's absolutely right.

- So that then takes you to?

- To Washington, D.C.

I came to D.C.

to be the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Duncan at the time, then I eventually moved into a role of Chief of Staff to the number two, and it was a wonderful experience.

It's funny, having worked in the administration at that time, it's an experience that you hold onto, and you know that you'll never have again.

It's crazy, its 24/7, but I helped to develop the second term agenda for the administration when president Obama was re-elected, and very much a policy all the way from early childhood through post secondary education.

Anything from rethinking the teaching profession, what would it mean if the teaching profession was really the kind of profession that you and I experience on a daily basis.

What would it look like for teachers to have that, to thinking about My Brother's Keeper, of improving outcome for boys and young men of color.

When that experience was over for me, I was frustrated with where education was and wasn't at the time.

Here I am, over a decade later, not expecting it to be where we were, of having made tremendous progress, but not the kind of progress, a company would be shut down if we had the kind of bits and starts, and the regression and progression that you see in education.

I also, quite frankly, driving around D.C.

one day, seeing some adults on a corner, who clearly were struggling, perhaps mental health reasons, jobless, and I thought, how much easier would the work of education be, if we thought about the intersectionality of other social sectors, and other social issues.

It doesn't mean that children can't be successful and achieve high quality outcomes, and be whole as a child without these things, but how can we work on a family, and the adults in the family, and the kids, how can we empower and enable them in a way that makes sense.

That I then, decided to do a startup, co-found a startup, as you know, called opportunity at work, which is very much focused on expanding pathways to jobs, so people that have the skills you can get the job.

I thought for those students that didn't get the high quality education, this is their second chance.

- So all the way through this journey, and again, private sector, non-profit sector, public sector, you've worked in all three, I think that's actually very important for people who are going to be leaders, the culture of all three.

In all those, through that journey, you are an African American woman, who is the first generation to have graduated from college.

We hear a lot about intersectionality, that's an odd word, but it really just means if you're a woman, you have one set of experiences.

If you're African American, you have another set of experiences.

If you are coming from a low income background, or simply a lower educational background, you have a third set of experiences.

You sit at the intersection of all three.

So I want to hear how that has affected your path, and how you think about being a leader, as an African American woman, who has lived the American Dream in many ways, although as you were saying, and we can look around, it's a dream that is not available to so many of our people.

Your story is now exceptional, not normal.

- I remember doing a panel recently saying, I'm tired of being the exception.

I'm tired of showing up and being the only person.

It's such a real and lived experience for me, it's interesting that there's sometimes, you know America's actually majority women.

We're like 60% women, girl power!

I am never in a conversation, at New America or elsewhere, where I am not aware of my race.

I'm never in a conversation with, say even a mixed ethnic group, where I'm not aware of the socioeconomic impact on the conversation that we're having.

I know what it means to struggle, I know what it means to have family members who are still very much struggling, where fifty dollars makes a world of a difference.

So that sits with me at all times.

It is present with me, and sometimes it's actually frustrating.

Because I sit in conversations of privilege, where I'm not sure if the folks that are there recognize their privilege, and maybe have conversations connected to entitlement, then I am boiling and trying to think about how I introduce the privilege that we sit with, that to think "oh I should go from x to y, even more privilege!"

And I think about all the people that don't have a tenth of what we have, is this hard tension to hold of introducing it into the conversation, while also not letting it all out because it sits and it bubbles with me.

- So I want to ask you about how you do that, and again, as a leader, and you are a leader, part of being a leader is setting a tone, creating a culture, people, if the CEO or the president yells at people, that will create one culture, and if you are calm and affirming that creates another.

I know you well enough to know you may be boiling inside, but I'm not going to see it.

When do you decide to pull the curtain aside a little bit and actually introduce race, or class, or gender, into the conversation?

Because to deny that, to lead exactly the same way as if you were a white man, we're not going to make the progress we need.

On the other hand, you can't be that all the time.

So how do you think about that balance?

- That's a great question.

So one is, I can be very different one on one, than I am in a group, and depending on the relationship and the time to have a cander, I will.

So you and I for example, very frank conversations about race, if I'm not sure about something that's been said, I can raise it to you because we have the relationship, and we can also create the time to clarify what I mean, what you mean, what I think is necessary for the organization, what we're seeing, et cetera.

So the context for pulling it back, and being able to deal with it, quite frankly, is a big part of it.

- That's interesting.

You and I have had much franker conversations, than I've ever had, because we have a kind of safe space.

- Exactly.

- If I say something that is insensitive, or just blind, you can call me on it.

- That's right.

The second way that I think about it that is a larger group setting, is to still be authentic and honest about it, in a way that is just that.

But it doesn't totally rip the bandaid off because you can't deal with it in a large setting.

- Right.

- That becomes really important to everyone.

Because there are lots of people that I find that are thinking it, and I can just see the connection made with them, by being honest about the way that I see the world, or the situation, or the work, as part of that.

I actually think I'm a better leader because of my intersectionality, because I know what it means to feel invisible.

I know what it means to be underprivileged, I know what it means to be on the other, I live the other, quite frankly, on a daily basis.

Because I know what that feels like, I can connect with people in a way that other people may see past.

I can take time for people that are usually skipped past because they are young, or a person of color, or low socioeconomic background.

I don't pretend to see it all, because I recognize that I sit in a place of privilege, but I do think I have a different lens that I can see, and I try to connect with people that I know are probably invisible for one reason or another.

So I both speak that sometimes, as well as just the lived experience in a way that I show up at work and in the world.

- It's interesting, and I've seen you do this, and I think you're right that, even in a quiet way, sort of reintroducing race, or gender, or socioeconomic status into the conversation, shifts things.

You're right, a lot of people are relieved, other people suddenly realize "Whoa, wait a minute.

We're talking in this narrow band, we need to be talking here."

I want to ask you about your broader philosophy about leadership, or how you think about leadership, because America's changing in so many ways.

The leaders of the next decade, and the 2030's and the 2040's, we will have far more intersectional leaders.

We will have leaders that reflect the country much more than we have had.

We're going to have to find ways to lead in a way that is not angry, but as you say bringing yourself to work, showing up in a way.

How do you think about leadership, broadly in that context?

- I think our first goal is to give people a sense of what is possible.

You've talked about this a lot in the context of our mission in renewing America.

But it's to help people see where you're trying to go, and see what's possible.

So first you sort of start with this mental model of what you're trying to achieve.

Then I think its very much about enabling and empowering others to do their work, to be their best selves in all the ways that that's defined, and to do their best work.

I often think when I show up in the morning once most people are in the office, my job is not about being at the computer or doing that work, but it's about interacting with others and giving them what they need in order to continue to carry the ball down the field, or create what they need to create.

But it is about the leader as coach, and leader as enabler, so that people can do their best work and be their best selves.

Here's the other flip part, that can sometimes be hard to do, it's also being open.

Listening for alternatives.

The reason I say that can be hard, is sometimes I feel like I sit in this sandwich generation.

Where I came up with work 12-14 hours a day, don't tell me about your personal life, get it done.

(laughs) I don't care what you think, get it done.

Some of that wiring is still very much there.

I have a staff member that's like "Well so and so worked extra hours" and I'm kind of like- thank you.

- So sandwiched between the boomers and the millennials.

- Yes.

Sandwiched between the boomers and the millennials.

Even sometimes its simple things like a tire.

I grew up in corporate America, that was still a very conservative style, and when you think about the influence of the tech boom, and the culture of very relaxed, come as you are.

I'm like yes right, it doesn't matter.

How can I be open to what other people need to be their best selves.

And what is, and isn't, critical.

You have to be open and listen to that, while also thinking about your own standards and the way you were sort of raised.

- I think this idea of leader as coach has a lot in it.

Because if you think about a coach, a good coach will absolutely focus on the individual strengths of every member of his or her team.

But a good coach also has to essentially forge a team.

The players have to come together.

Its not just you're managing each one individually.

Its not just you're managing each one individually.

You're forming a team.

You're forming a team.

And a good coach, sometimes has to lay down the law.

I've never seen an athlete, or someone who works with a coach, where the coach didn't also set a tone, tell people when they're out of line, but do so in a way that enables and forges a team.

Again, if you think about a country with a very diverse work force, that sort of individual growth, enabling and empowering, but also making a team, I think makes a lot of sense.

- It does.

It absolutely makes a lot of sense.

We are not individuals, we are one.

You have to think about where those two come together of individual and team, what you may want as an individual may not be good for the team.

So you need to resolve that conflict, that not only helps the individual be his or her best self, but then helps the team do what they need in order to be together.

New America certainly is a very diverse group of people, as you know.

I would say it's taken me a while, but I've come to really appreciate the uniqueness and the assets that each person brings.

Often when I coach people outside of work, and they're frustrated with their boss I'll say "But what do they bring, that you can learn from?"

I get they're terrible at giving you feedback, that they're terrible at x, but there's some stuff that everyone is good at, and what can you learn from that, and take forward.

The leader, as coach, will look for that and try to leverage that to bring everyone together.

- That is a perfect note on which to end.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I have, and I hope you come away from our show having learned something new.

Thinking about an old issue or problem in a new way.

We can have productive conversations across differences of many kinds.

We have as many reasons for hope, as for despair.

Each of us has the opportunity to help find out way forward as a nation.

Thank you.