Building Innovation Inclusively, One Team At A Time

How one Pax8 leader found his way to being an innovative advocate for social responsibility.

With much of the conversation about equity centering on those of us at the margins, I wonder: What is the role of business leaders who claim to be allies and advocates? So, when I had the opportunity to talk last month with Pax8’s Lane Brannan, executive vice president and general manager of Americas, about leadership and building diversity, the top thing on my mind was how inclusion feeds into his leadership.

Diverse Teams Do It Better

“I started leading people in 2002,” said the technology sales executive. “One of the first teams that I built was pretty diverse. We crushed it, but I wasn’t conscious of the diversity. I was trying to learn how to lead.”

In learning how to lead, Brannan (pictured above) also learned how to promote, moving the high-performing women to well-earned positions. But one day, he looked up and realized the dynamics of his team had changed. They were not performing as well or meeting their target goals. And as their leader, he wondered why.

“I'm sitting at that same table leading a team made up of new people, it was a bunch of guys,” he said. “And we weren’t as good.”

Studies from Deloitte, McKinsey and CRN parent company The Channel Company all indicate diverse teams perform better in business. However, leaders often push back and question the policies that impact organizational growth via diversity and inclusion. Not to mention the leaders who are confronted directly with the need to approach business growth through embracing difference.

After not meeting a few goals and moving to a new organization Brannan saw an opportunity. “I remember distinctly realizing… all of a sudden [when] I had another diverse team, and we were crushing it. I was like, this is way better,” he continues, “along the lines of success, diversity is better, and equals more success.”

Innovation And Social Responsibility

The last 18 months, the tech industry and channel ecosystem has seen several organizations pull back on investment in programmatic equity and inclusion, however there are clear opportunities to build better business outcomes through not just product innovation, but innovations in people leadership. Pax8, a clear innovator in cloud distribution technology, agrees.

“If you're going to be innovative, then you should also be socially innovative. And I think it plays well. It plays well within the walls of our business,” said Brannan.

Now, as a more mature leader and proud girl dad, Brannan continues to use his influence to advocate for diversity and gender equity. It was connecting the dots between the future he wanted for his three children and the work he did to create gender diverse teams. The inclusive leader realized that all the things he was doing for “the purpose of running better business” lead to not only watching women succeed but having a front seat to their continued networks of advocacy. Something he continues to be a part of today.

“Now I am looking critically at some of the things I saw,” he said. “I have an ability as a leader to do something about it.”

In business, when organizations like Pax8 support equity – ensuring teams have the tools, the infrastructure, and the support needed to be their most inclusive – the returns on investment lead to better products and financial performance. And it’s time that men in the channel ecosystem, those like Lane Brannan, recognize that inclusive leadership makes more than a social impact, it makes a financially innovative one.

Simply put, it’s a win-win for everybody.

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