S4 E65 | CXR Foundation: “It’s all about building a community”- Brad Cook

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to the CXR channel, our premier podcast for talent acquisition and talent management. Listen in as the CXR community discusses a wide range of topics focused on attracting, engaging and retaining the best talent. We’re glad you’re here.

Chris Hoyt 0:16
Hello everybody, this is Chris Hoyt with CareerXroads, and I am on the line with Brad Cook head of global talent over at Intuitive Surgical Brad, how are you,

Brad Cook, Intuitive 0:24
Good how are you?

Chris Hoyt 0:25
I’m doing pretty well. I’m kind of excited about this topic. For those who don’t already know, a whole bunch of us have come together to stand up a new nonprofit called the CXR Foundation. And it’s sort of spun out from under some work that was being done before. Last years charitable work in the field when we actually used to work in soup kitchens, and shelters and all these really, really interesting places when we were traveling back in the day. And then, most recently out of a project called recruiters, recruiting recruiters, which you were heavily involved in. And so I want to take a pause, I’ll take a breath right there and just ask you, maybe you can give an overview to listeners who haven’t heard yet, what the CXR Foundation has been established to do, why a nonprofit? What what it’s all about?

Brad Cook, Intuitive 1:13
It’s a good question. I think, for me, it really stemmed from the recruiters recruiting recruiters, and it’s still a mouthful doesn’t matter how many times I say it, um, it really jumped out from that there was so many people wanted to get involved and wanted to help, and it was vendors that would normally be competing with each other. Yeah, and to do it under the umbrella of a nonprofit just means Yeah, we’re gonna start to offer it to a lot more people out there and do a lot more good. I think that’s Yeah, the roundtable stuff really showed there was so many people in our industry, especially in tough times with COVID, wanting to do whatever they could, and you know, if we can put an under a nonprofit, and then more people can be part of that, or actually, the work that comes out of it can now help industry, I think it just makes the industry a better place and continues to make the industry a better place. And quite frankly, that’s why I love being part of CXR it continues to give back to our community and makes us all better individuals.

Chris Hoyt 2:12
Yeah, I think you raise an interesting point, because it’s not just about talent, giving back we’re talking about our talent practitioners giving back we’re now talking about sort of grouping together a teaming up or pairing up people who are in the solution space, the vendor space providers under the umbrella of a nonprofit, so they can continue to do good work alongside their competitors. And alongside some of their customers, potential customers, but never customers. Right, right. Yep. Yeah, so there’s a number of projects, because we’re talking about community, the community aspect, we’re talking about the charitable aspect. And we also talk about the industry standards are establishing those pieces. And we’ve got about four projects that are one full blown that’s in the works, which has been pretty successful recruiters recruiting recruiters. Okay, doesn’t mouthful every time. And then we’ve got the one project that we’ve talked a little bit about, and that’s the interview coaching for those who are employed helping those who are still looking for work. We’ve got another two that are sort of on the in the ideation looking for the correct sponsorship and alignment on which is the I’m going to put you on the spot in a minute, which is the get cooking program, which is kind of a fun one where we have a theme around some sort of meal, people can donate a minimum amount of money, but up to whatever they want. And part of those proceeds goes to the Chef’s Choice, charity of choice, and then they get access to the online cookbook, etc. It’s going to be fun. And then we have another one which is about roadmaps and building a methodology for DE&I roadmaps that can just be picked up and dropped into organizations and delivered upon. So that’s four. Is there one year the most excited about? Or one we haven’t even talked about yet that you think would be a good idea that maybe you haven’t even shared with us yet?

Brad Cook, Intuitive 3:56
To be honest, I haven’t haven’t thought on other things. But I really love the DE&I like, yeah, we’re all struggling right now to make actionable results. Now of all the conversation I’ve had with PS, it’s always at the at the 10,000 foot view, we have to build a DE&I program, but it starts with executive leadership and this and that, yeah, well, those things tend to be outside of our control that take multiple years to get everybody but everybody brought in, you know, having a playbook whatever you want to call it. That is the things that a practitioner later can do right now. And quite frankly, the the crowdsourcing ideas from every different industry that that’s the one that excites me off the charts, because I’m struggling to come through with an actiononalble DE&I activity that can be done now that can prove the result on the other end. And then number two is cooking one as long as there is glasses of wine involved in that. I love it.

Chris Hoyt 4:53
I don’t think there’ll be any lack of a glass of wine. There could be glass of wine on the methodology one

Brad Cook, Intuitive 4:58
I think that one my good evening Better again,

Chris Hoyt 5:00
Way more productivity. Well, that’s awesome. So if you have it, I’m gonna ask you the same question I asked Gerry, who’s the ideal person to participate in this nonprofit? Who’s the ideal person to consider joining this nonprofit?

Brad Cook, Intuitive 5:16
I don’t think it needs to be any particular individual, unless they have the mindset of contributing. It’s about a mindset of contributing back. Yeah, I’m going to come back to the Burning Man analogy. It’s about building a community. And we might not know the people that can benefit from the community until it pops up. So we give for no reason except forgiving, and then hoping and be received by somebody. So I think anybody across the levels that that wants to leave this place a better industry than what it was when we started it.

Chris Hoyt 5:55
Yeah, wonderful. Well set. Yeah. So anybody looking for more information can head out to the new website, it’s just been propped up. It’s www.CXR.Foundation. There’s no.com on that, it’s just sometimes I typed.com. I got it back it up its CXR.Foundation, they can get more information, they can join the newsletter and figure that out, Brad, I want to thank you for all that you’ve done over the last year leaning in on projects before they were formalized, and then helping us get the CXR Foundation off the ground. I’m really excited about where this is going.

Brad Cook, Intuitive 6:26
Now so am I, thanks for all the hard work you guys do.

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Tagged as: Recruiters Recruiting Recruiters, Community, CXR Foundation.