Pod Insights How I Built This with Guy Raz How I Built Resilience: Cynt Marshall of Dallas Mavericks About this episode When a Sports Illustrated article exposed internal abuse and harassment in the Dallas Mavericks organization, owner Mark Cuban knew he had a culture problem. So he hired Cynt Marshall as CEO, and she tells Guy how she started to turn things around, and how she's leading the organization through this unprecedented moment. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.
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5:06 Guy Raz? If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built. Hey, everyone. So I have a request. If you value this show, if you value the stories, the lessons, the wisdom and inspiration we bring to you, if you think of me as your friend, which I am, because even though millions of you are listening, I'm actually talking just to you right now. I need you to be there for me as well. And you can do that by supporting what I do and buying my book, How I Built This.
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6:18 Guy Raz? Hey, everyone, and welcome to How I Built This: Resilience Edition. On these episodes, we talk with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're dealing with this very challenging moment in human history and the creative ways they're trying to figure it out. So, back in 2016, I got a chance to talk with Mark Cuban. He's one of the Sharks on Shark Tank, of course. He's also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and it was a really open and honest conversation. And you can check it out in our feed if you haven't heard it. And so recently, I was really excited to talk with Sint Marshall, who Mark brought on a couple of years ago as the CEO of the Mavericks. Sint is actually the first African-American woman to be the CEO of any NBA team.
7:01 Guy Raz? Now, this is only her second season with the Mavericks. Her first was in the 2018-19 season last year. And when she got the call from Mark Cuban, she didn't even know who he was.
7:12 Speaker 01 That is kind of embarrassing that I didn't know him.
7:14 Guy Raz? No, it's not. Totally, it's cool. Actually, it's better that you didn't know who he was.
7:18 Speaker 01 It is. I mean, I worked for AT&T for 36 years. Then I came to Dallas to do culture transformation and HR work and something completely different for AT&T. And after six years of that, I retired. And then on February 21, 2018, I started getting all these text messages. And actually, I thought it was one of my kids. I have four kids, so I thought it was one of my kids looking for money. So I handed my husband the phone and said, "One of the kids need money. They're blowing up the phone. Kind of, you know, handle it." And then he came back and said, "I think you need to return this call. It's Mark Cuban." And so, of course, I asked him, "Who was that and all that?" And so, when I went to see him, he talked to me about a Sports Illustrated article that
7:58 Speaker 01 had just come out and was very genuine about wanting a culture transformation.
8:04 Guy Raz? Just to clarify, this was the article that came out about, like, 20 years of sexism. And it was a pretty devastating article about the culture of the Dallas Mavericks. And Mark Cuban... He came to you saying, we gotta begin to solve, fix this problem.
8:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, he said, I need your help. I need your help. And so we talked for about almost an hour. And I still hadn't decided that I was going to do it. And then two women talked to me as I was leaving his office.
8:27 Guy Raz? What'd they say to you? They said like, please, we need you.
8:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, they said, are you the person whom Mark Cuban said is going to come in and save us? I said, well, first of all, I do not have the power or ability to save anybody. Uh, but yeah, we are talking about me coming in to, to help out. And they said, you have to come. And they started telling me some things that were happening. And I said, well, you know, I'm gonna go home and pray about it and, you know, maybe I'll come back tomorrow. And so I did go back the next day. And I was there for about three hours in a conference room with people just coming in and out, talking to me. And Mark didn't even know I had come back. Uh, but just met some wonderful people who needed leadership. And that's what Mark wanted. That's what he asked for. And so I said, yes.
9:06 Guy Raz? And Sin, from what I understand, when you got there, and this, I think this is pretty common in a lot of corporate environments, and certainly maybe in the sports world. From what I read, there were like no women in leadership positions, or very few in leadership positions. And actually, it wasn't incredibly diverse either. And that was one of the first things that you wanted to tackle.
9:24 Speaker 01 Had to, had to. And so I had a recipe. So the first thing I did was set out a vision. And the vision just basically said the Dallas Mavericks would set the NBA standard for diversity and inclusion by 2019. Meaning, we had about, what, nine months to do that. So that was the vision we set out because I know the business case for diversity. And you have to have a diverse group of people around the table, uh, if you really want to be as successful as you can be. And then I had one-on-one with all the employees and then made some leadership changes. And so now we have almost 50% women in leadership and 47% people of color. And so diversity matters. It matters.
10:01 Guy Raz? So your goal was to set the NBA standard for diversity and inclusion. And are you now the most diverse and inclusive leadership team in, for an NBA organization?
10:11 Speaker 01 I know we're somewhere at the top of, we actually ended up getting the NBA's Diversity and Inclusion Award in January for all of the work that we have done. So that was, that was pretty special for us because we have a lot of people working very hard on not just diversity, because you know, there is a difference. Diversity is about the mix, it's about race, gender, ethnicity, all of that. But inclusion is about the climate, the sense of belonging, it's about, you know, what do you do with that mix of people? And so we've been very focused on all of that, including equity, including equity, fairness and all that. And so to have it recognized by the NBA was big for us. I mean, obviously, we still have a lot of work to do, we'll always have a lot of work to do,
10:54 Speaker 01 but I think we've made some progress. It definitely looks different and feels different from March of 2018, according to what the folks are telling me.
11:02 Guy Raz? Wow. But it's interesting because you had no experience in the sports world. You were, you worked for AT&T and you worked in the corporate world and they sought you out. And that it sounds like you basically came in and said, "I'll do this job, but I've got to make some big changes here." And it sounds like you were supported in that endeavor.
11:19 Speaker 01 Oh, I was, I was definitely supported by Mark. I mean, he wanted to see some changes. He did give me free rein to make the leadership changes that needed to be made. Some people didn't think that was going to happen. And he said, "No, do what you need to do." I mean, obviously, we talked about the plan before I executed on it, because I put together a 100-day plan. And it was a 100-day plan that had four main pieces to it. The first piece was to model zero tolerance, complete an investigation, and to really let people know that we have zero tolerance.
11:49 Guy Raz? For sexism, for racism.
11:51 Speaker 01 And for behavior, sexual harassment, misconduct, and false allegations. I mean, all of it. We're just not tolerated. And so that means that if some people need to go, then they need to go. The second piece was to develop a Mavs Women's Agenda, empowering women, elevating women. And then we laid out a whole culture transformation agenda. What needs to happen around here? What's our diversity and inclusion strategy? How are we going to address culture? And then just basic operational effectiveness, looking at gender pay equity, looking at market-based compensation, performance reviews, just the basic things you need to run a business, which is what I have been used to for 36 years.
12:28 Guy Raz? Sin, what's been the hardest part about making cultural changes at the organization? I mean, I imagine that you probably at times faced resistance, or, you know, maybe people didn't fully understand what was happening, or what you were trying to achieve. Were there difficult moments?
12:44 Speaker 01 I think the hardest part is to try to institutionalize a new culture while you're purging the old culture. Because, keep in mind, when I got there, there were, you know, there were people there who had been involved in some of the unfavorable activity. And so, I mean, I had one situation where somebody actually told their whole team, "Don't respond to her. Don't do anything she's asking to be done because she won't be here in 90 days."
13:11 Guy Raz? Wow.
13:12 Speaker 01 And that's unfortunate, because then you have a whole group of people who are also impacted, who want to have the positive changes, but their leaders are saying, "Don't get involved." But we addressed that. We addressed that. But you have to just keep going. I had one-on-ones with every single employee in the organization. I'd start out with the same question. I said, "Give me your whole life story." And so, most of the time, they would start off with, "Oh, this is my fifth season at the Mavs," or, "This is my 10th season at the Mavs." And I'd say, "Okay, back up. Were you born here? I want to know your whole life story." So then they'd back up, because usually they were surprised that I actually wanted to know their whole life story. Then they would give it to me. And then at the very end, after we had all of our conversation, the last question I would ask is, I said, "What do you see yourself five years from now?"
13:57 Speaker 01 And what was very clear to me, Guy, and, I mean, one night, I just started crying. Because I realized I had all these people who set out to have a career in sports. Not just jobs, but a career. And all of a sudden, I'm leading these people, and so my job is to make sure they get to have the careers in sports that they wanted to have, just like the career in communications that I was able to have. And so, I just, I asked the two women who I brought in with me. I told them one night, I said, "You know what? I need to know if you're all in." Because I'm all in with these people. I love these people. And so after that, we started making some leadership changes. And did what we needed to do, but it was all based on that hundred day plan.
14:39 Speaker 01 And every time we felt like we checked something big off, we would have a big kind of ceremony, a huddle, if you will. And we check it off. As an organization, we had to all agree that this particular item had been checked off. And so I remember one time I was getting ready to check off compensation and everybody started looking kind of weird. And I thought, what's going on around here? And I whispered over to my head of human resources and said, why is everybody looking kind of strange? She said, we haven't covered it yet. I said, oh, it's like they were calling me on it. Like, no, we're not checking this off because it's not done. And so I said, oops. I said, okay, guys, I guess this is premature. I guess it's premature, everybody. And so then they gave the feedback and gave everybody, you know, the information. And then we came back and had a ceremony and checked it off.
15:24 Speaker 01 And on the very last day, we checked it off. We left our building, we walked back in, uncovered all of our values, our new mission statement, all that. I had a little ceremony where everybody dipped their hands in paint and had this wall where we just basically said, we're all in.
15:40 Guy Raz? That is so cool. There's something you said there, and I want anybody watching or listening to this right now. This is so important. And it's a reason why How I Built This, our show resonates and connects with so many people. You asked people to tell you their story. And that's something that not enough of us do with our work colleagues. Even with people we've known for decades, we don't always know their story. When you know someone's story, there's no way not to develop empathy. There's no way not to, you learn about their struggles and their obstacles and the challenges they went through. It changes your perspective about somebody when you know their story.
16:18 Speaker 01 It really does. And we all have a story. And you said it. I mean, it's about perspectives. We all bring different angles to things. We bring different perspectives. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen a diagram where it's, depending on what side you're standing on, either you see a six when you're looking down on it, or you see a nine. And the caption underneath says, it's not that I'm Wrong, and it's not that you're right. You just haven't seen life from my side. And so we need to know all of those perspectives. And that's why we need to know people's stories. I always say one of our values is authenticity. So our values spell crafts. So it's character, respect, authenticity, fairness, teamwork, and safety. Both physical and emotional safety. And so on the authenticity piece, our hashtag is do you?
17:03 Speaker 01 I want the person who gets up out of bed in the morning, all the issues they have, the backgrounds they have, the stories they have, the perspectives they have. That's what I want to walk into our workplace every day. You don't have to leave yourself at home. You don't have to leave your story at home. You don't have to park it in the parking lot. That's what makes us a great place to work, to have all of those backgrounds
17:25 Guy Raz? I love it.
17:26 Speaker 01 and cultures and perspectives, uh, working. And I've been in a situation where I've, I was asked not to be who I am. And so I've lived those days and, and, and I don't like that. I don't like that. The person who gets up out of bed in the morning needs to be the person who walks into the building. And we as leaders need to meet people where they are.
17:45 Guy Raz? When we come back in just a moment, more from my conversation with St. Marshall and how NBA team owners often have values that don't align with their players. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This, Resilience Edition from NPR.
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20:39 Guy Raz? Hey, welcome back to How I Built This: Resilience Edition. So, the NBA is basically a case study on professional sports leagues that depend on athletes of color. And yet, so many team owners often hold values that are at odds with the players' values, and sometimes even their fans. So, when I spoke to Dallas Mavericks CEO, Sint Marshall, I asked her about how players might hold owners accountable.
21:04 Guy Raz? Do you think we're in a time and a place now where players will start to or will be able to hold owners more accountable for their public positions and views?
21:15 Speaker 01 Here's what I'll say to that, and obviously I can talk about the Mavs, I can talk about what's happened with the NBA. We're playing in the bubble with a court that says Black Lives Matter, okay?
21:26 Guy Raz? Yeah.
21:26 Speaker 01 Because our players decided that they wanted to be able to speak out. They're not in their home markets, so they're not able to do some of the things they would normally do when you have this kind of a situation like we've been in post George Floyd public lynching. And so for the players to say, "We want to take a stand. We want to have something on our jerseys. We want to speak out on this." I mean, they're grown men. They're able to do that. But it's not just the players. I mean, it's all of us. I mean, at the Mavs, we launched something called Mavs Take Action. It's our own plan to address racial inequities, promote social change, look at some of the injustices. And what I always say is, we don't just work here. We don't just play here. We live here, too. And the things that are
22:10 Speaker 01 important to our communities are important to us. Fortunately, we have a terrific owner who understands what's happening in the country, who understands the community. And I know it's, you know, you have a lot of situations where people just have differences. And that's okay. It's okay to have differences. We've had some season ticket holders who have called and asked for a refund because of our stand on some issues. And I like to talk to them. I like to have the conversation because this is about, we had a courageous conversation on June 9. We said, "We are normal conveners. We unify people. As a basketball team, we bring people out." So we're going to have the socially distant courageous conversation. We're going to talk about the reactions to the George Floyd situation. We're going to
22:54 Speaker 01 talk about biases and stereotypes and all that. Our theme was, "Listen, Learn, Unite." Because that's what it's about. Listening to each other, learning our stories, learning what people are going through, and then uniting around an action plan to move this country forward. Because we still have some issues to address. And some of these issues are 400 years old. And so I think we're all holding ourselves and each other accountable. I know that's what we're trying to do here in Dallas and at the Mavs.
23:21 Guy Raz? A question from Rehan Adatia through Facebook. Rehan asks,
23:26 Guy Raz? What's it like working with a vocal owner like Mark Cuban? He's probably the best known owner in basketball and one of them in professional sports. And how much, you know, control does he have over organizational decision making?
23:37 Speaker 01 Okay, well, I will tell you, it's wonderful working for him. He is, I love the fact that he is vocal. He's bold, he's courageous, because I'm all of those things too. So I like having a boss like that. And so I'm blessed. Uh, but he's one of those bosses where he makes you feel like you're the only person in the room or the only person on the phone because he'll give you 100% of his attention. I love that, as busy as he is. Uh, and I can run all kinds of things by him. I do have the decision making power on the business side. I mean, I make my own personnel moves, I make the decisions. And at the end of the day, he'll say, "Sinn, it's your call." I mean, that's one of his favorite lines, "Sinn, it's your call." But he is involved. I mean, he's, he's involved from the standpoint of being there as kind of my coach and my mentor.
24:22 Speaker 01 I'm learning the business of basketball, uh, from him, which is great. And he claims that he's learning some things from me about leading people and diversity and inclusion and all that, so I don't know.
24:33 Guy Raz? I'm sure he's learned an unbelievable amount from you. I'm sure it's been absolutely like revolutionary for him. Um, Sinn, on the business side, can you kind of give us a sense of what it means to be the CEO of an NBA team, you know, versus like a, an owner or a general manager? Like, what is, what does a CEO of an NBA team do?
24:53 Speaker 01 Uh, I manage the business side of it. So, uh, ticket sales operations, serving our fans, uh, making sure that we have a full house in the arena when we play at home, all the marketing, brand identity, sponsorships. So, uh, three of us report to Mark Cuban. So I have the business side, Rick Carlisle is our head coach, and Donnie Nelson is the general manager, all the scouting and all of that. So I don't scout, I don't coach, I handle the business side.
25:21 Guy Raz? Uh, kind of walk us through the, the business challenges here because I imagine that a huge part of a team's revenue comes from fans appearing at the arena, buying snacks, buying beer, buying merchandise, and a lot of that's, virtually all of that's gone. So does television, do television deals and, and maybe, you know, merch sales, does that make up for the loss?
25:46 Speaker 01 Well, not 100%. So, we're trying to be creative. We did some things in the bubble with our sponsors. And the big thing was trying to figure out how to make sure that our sponsors are still visible.
26:00 Guy Raz? Yeah.
26:00 Speaker 01 So, we had some, you know, the online signage on the court. So, it's a challenge.
26:06 Guy Raz? Yeah.
26:06 Speaker 01 Online merchandising has increased. We have to pivot quickly. You know, we gave away a lot of masks and a lot of, you know, PPE. But we also started selling some things. So, just really trying to figure out how do we meet the community's needs, but also figure out a way to make some money in the process. So, online merch has really, really gone up for us. But you're right. I mean, we had eight home games that we missed at the end of the season.
26:30 Guy Raz? Right.
26:31 Speaker 01 Because we shut down. And so, we had to, fortunately for us, most of our fans didn't ask for a refund. Most of them said, either carry it on, give me a credit into next season and let's see what happens, or we'll donate it to... We were doing a lot in the community. I mean, we pivoted, so we did a lot in the community. And so, they wanted to be a part of that. Because this Dallas region is amazing in terms of just being there for the community. And so, a lot of people wanted to partner with us on that. So, knock on wood, yes, it is challenging financially, but it could be much, much, much worse.
27:05 Guy Raz? Yeah. This is a question from Ahmed El-Masiri. Ahmed asks, what advice would you give to other minorities and women in the business environment about leading conversations around diversity and inclusion in a company, especially if we're not in leadership roles?
27:23 Speaker 01 Depending on the size of the company. So, if you have employee resource groups or affinity groups, usually those leaders of those groups will pull people together and pull the business together to have those conversations. But even if you don't have them, I think somebody has to be bold enough to step up and to talk to their leaders if they're not doing it. I mean, hopefully you have leaders who are. But if they're not doing it, somebody has to say, we need to talk about this. And I played that role years ago. Somebody has to step up and do it because there's no way we can have a... Double pandemic going on, and we truly have a double pandemic. We've got COVID-19, and then we've got the issue of social justice. So we've got two pandemics going on in this country right now.
28:05 Guy Raz? Yep.
28:06 Speaker 01 And we need to be talking about both of them. I mean, when the George Floyd thing happened, some of our African-American men said, "Somebody call sent, we need to talk like today." And so we talked for three hours that Friday night.
28:18 Guy Raz? Wow.
28:18 Speaker 01 And then that Monday, my leadership team call turned into a whole conversation around race. Then our entire weekly huddle, because we have all these kind of touchpoints, for a solid week, all of them were around what was happening with social justice. Just like previously, we were talking about COVID. And so you just have to respond, but it's because employers were saying, "Here's their agenda item, here's what I want to talk about." And so we responded to that, and then that led to a big community conversation. So you just got to put it out there, here's their agenda item. And hopefully there are ways to do that, it's direct phone calls, it's through hotlines, it's through sending somebody an email. Leaders have to respond to that, especially when it's coming in mass, when a lot of people are saying, "We're going to talk about this."
29:01 Guy Raz? Yeah. You know, Sen, the hardest part about this conversation for me is you're turning me into a Dallas Mavericks fan.
29:09 Speaker 01 Yay, we have such, we have such a great team, we have such a great team, yeah.
29:14 Guy Raz? Oh my god. All right, before I let you go, a lot of people are wondering whether professional sports is going to be changed forever, or at least for the medium term, right? I mean, fans might be scared to go back to arenas and stadiums, and some people are wondering whether there'll ever be a return to normal professional sports as they existed before, you know, March 2020. What do you think? I mean, do you think that the NBA, let's say there's a vaccine, do you imagine that like in the fall of 2021, you know, when the season starts again, it'll be back to normal?
29:45 Speaker 01 I sure hope so, oh my goodness. But I think a lot of that has to do with just what's happening, obviously, in our country. And so we need the vaccine, we need to wear our mask, we need to wash our hands, keep our distance, all that. But I'm optimistic, I'm an optimistic person, if you can't tell. And so I think we will slowly work our way back. But I will tell you, the NBA is totally focused on safety with. Which is why we ended up in the bubble. Safety first. I mean, safety first. And so, uh, once it's deemed safe, we'll be back in there. And so, we're, we're making plans. We hope we have a full arena. It may not start out full. Uh, we don't know exactly when we're going to start, but I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. I see a day out there where we'll all get back. And, and we can't wait.
30:28 Guy Raz? That's an excerpt from my conversation with St. Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, the first African-American woman CEO of an NBA team. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at youtube.com/NPR. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with help from Liz Metzger, Will Mitchell, Bruce Grant, Matt Adams, El Manion, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and I'll be back in just a few days. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This: Resilience Edition.
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