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My guest today is Marcy Syms - a pioneering businesswoman and advocate for respect in leadership. She the author of Leading with Respect: Adventures of an Off-Price Fashion Pioneer
For over a decade, Marcy Syms was CEO of Syms Corp. When Syms Corp had its IPO in 1983 on the New York Stock Exchange, Marcy became its first president and one of the youngest female presidents of a New York Stock Exchange company.
She helped lead the company from a New York based retailer to a national retailer with 50 stores.
Marcy has seen leadership fads come and go.
She was a CEO when people still thought “women shouldn’t do that sort of thing.”
And she’s done something many folks have never had to endure - navigating a difficult bankruptcy reorganization that ended her family’s retail business while making her key creditors whole and keeping her employee’s pensions intact - an act deeply in line with her core value of respect.
Marcy shares insights from her journey in the retail industry, her experiences with leadership dynamics and her advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment - something she hopes to see made part of the US constitution while she’s still around to enjoy it!
Why Respect?
🗝️Respect drives sustainable growth - respect for your team allows them to feel empowered to be the face of your business and to build the processes and systems that make growth sustainable.
🗝️Giving respect helps you get respect - starting first, leading the conversation with respect at the core helps get things done, especially in times of stress and turbulence. Marcy shares how building those bridges with her board helped her navigate SYMS’ bankruptcy proceedings with more grace and more effectiveness.
🗝️And Marcy and I unpack how Respect is outer behavior and inner work - and how making it a core habit and your default behavior takes strategic reflection and personal growth.
We also discuss the value of forums and councils for personal and professional growth and her experiences with YPO and the Committee of 200. We also discuss how there needs to be gender balance in these spaces in order for them to be truly effective.
Marcy currently serves on several not for profit boards including the Equal Rights Amendment Project at Columbia Law School, CUNY’s Macaulay Honors School, the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, and NPR.
She is also the founding trustee and President of the Sy Syms Foundation which supports programs in education, scientific research, societal justice and the arts. Since its inception, the Sy Syms Foundation has awarded over $60 million dollars in grants.
Learn more about Marcy at https://marcysyms.com/
Don’t have time to watch or listen to the full episode? To learn more about leading conversations more powerfully and beautifully, watch these short clips 👇
👀make respect a habit and start from within
👀How to Respond to Disrespect with Dignity and Strategy
👀To Scale you need to Respect your team
https://youtube.com/shorts/HczFY9-ASFw
👀Leadership Balances Top Down Strategy and Bottom up Insights
https://youtube.com/shorts/57yWfiQtykw
👀Know your board as humans
One Takeaway to not forget: Fight for the ERA! Marcy shares how she sees the ERA as the ultimate sign of respect and continues to fight for women’s full inclusion in the constitution: watch here: https://youtu.be/YAbEAqIVxzU
More About Marcy
Marcy Syms found her guiding principles and life philosophy in Golda Meir who when dealing with Israeli peace negotiations in the Middle East said, “Nothing in life just happens, you have to have the stamina to meet the obstacles and overcome them.” In forging her life path, Marcy has been an agent of change, a pioneer, and a provocateur who is always “changing the conversation.”
An independent director for private and public companies and social entrepreneur, Marcy Syms is the founding trustee and President of the Sy Syms Foundation which supports programs in education, scientific research, societal justice and the arts. Since its inception, the Sy Syms Foundation has awarded over $60 million dollars in grants.
Marcy also serves on several not for profit boards including the ERA Project at Columbia Law School, CUNY’s Macaulay Honors School, and the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, Leadership Council Tanenbaum and Advisory Board, and Have Art Will Travel. Since 2015, she has been on the board of National Public Radio and is a past Overseer of Boston University.
For over a decade, Marcy Syms was CEO of Syms Corp, which operated in 16 states selling designer and brand name apparel and housewares to “Educated Consumers”.
When Syms Corp had its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, Marcy became its first president and one of the youngest female presidents of a New York Stock Exchange company. She helped lead the company from a New York based retailer to a national retailer with 50 stores.
Marcy earned her MS in communications and public relations at Boston University College of Communication and received the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award for service to the profession in 2002. She sat on the Board of Overseers of BU from 2004 to 2018, by which time, a one billion dollar endowment had been successfully completed. At Parsons School of Design, Marcy helped create and taught the Retail Entrepreneur curriculum.
She recently retired from the board of Benco Dental, the third largest distributor of dental supplies and equipment in the US, where she was on the Finance Committee since 2014. She also served on the board of Rite Aid Corp fron 2005 to 2020, where she was the Chair of the Comp Committee and served on Audit and Nom/Gov.
Marcy is a Founding Advisory Board member of the ERA Project at Columbia Law School which was launched in 2021 and past Chair of the ERA Coalition/Fund for Women’s Equality which secured the 38th State ratification of the ERA Amendment.
Marcy is a 2022 fellow of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) bringing her executive leadership experience from retail and serving on the Women’s Politics and Policy Board at the Harvard Kendy School. Marcy is newly elected to the Board of Advisors of the Safra Center of Ethics at Harvard University and the Forward and also serving on the boards of Veteran Feminists of American and the NPR Foundation.
A long time supporter of the Arts, Public Television, and regional theatre, Marcy continues her love and recognition of the importance of the arts in our culture with her current involvement in Broadway production.
Marcy is a much sought after speaker on the subjects of family business, succession planning, public and not for profit boards, women in business and board governance diversity.
Key Links
Marcy’s book: Leading with the Respect
Full Transcript
Daniel Stillman (00:00)
so Marcy Syms, first of all, thank you very much for being here and welcome to the Conversation Factory. That's our. Well, I appreciate you saying that. So I think it's an important place to start just for the record that my mother and I were educated consumers and we were your best customers. And I just want to go on record as saying I've spent many happy hours in Paramus and.
Marcy Syms (00:05)
It's nice to be here. Good to see you, Daniel.
Daniel Stillman (00:23)
I still have a blue wool shawl collar Italian tuxedo. It was the strangest. You know, it's one of these finds that you would only find at Syms. You're like a blue like shawl collar, you know, with with fabric covered buttons tuxedo. Yes, like a hundred times. I still have a Sulka tie in my closet. I know that was a. So I just want to give a shout out. I don't know if everyone knows their.
Marcy Syms (00:46)
Hey, sulka!
Daniel Stillman (00:51)
⁓ retail history. but to me, I just, you know, it's important for me to go on record. And when my mother listens to this episode, which she will, that we're that we're fanboys and fangirls of, you know, I think also your story is a quintessential American story. It's a quintessential Jewish immigrant story. ⁓ I grew up seeing you on television, but honestly, times have changed and not many people will know the name Syms, which is, as we say,
Marcy Syms (01:10)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (01:20)
I think Ashanda so I think it's really important. And it's also really clear that you have a lot of respect and admiration for your dad and wanted to share his story in your book. And so I think it's really important to start with like what you most admire about him and what you want the world to know and remember about your about your dad and the work you two did together.
Marcy Syms (01:21)
you
This book was started because I wanted people to remember his life story and to understand him within the context of that first generation ⁓ American entrepreneur who had the kick upstairs from the GI Bill, was able to get not only an education at NYU, but also a first mortgage at... ⁓
Daniel Stillman (02:03)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (02:10)
one and a quarter percent or something with the GI Bill and basically able to get as so many white males did in our country at that time, the opportunity to become one of the most successful generations in the history of the world. They really changed the world. What I respected, I think, about my dad was his work ethic, first and foremost, that there was no
Daniel Stillman (02:13)
Wow.
Marcy Syms (02:39)
time limit on getting a job done, that if he believed in something, there was a way to get it done. And if there were obstacles along the way, it was just a matter of not finding yet the right solution. And that can-do attitude is what I most admired in my dad. And many of the entrepreneurs that lived in Yonkers as neighbors to us
who also had entrepreneurial verve and became like two blocks away, lived one of the founders of the Young Presidents Organization. And that was something that ⁓ engaged so many from that generation in a way of sharing business, experiencing networks, ⁓ opportunities, you know, it was, they were creating a new world.
Daniel Stillman (03:20)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah. It's extraordinary. It was a moment in history, as you say. It's not necessarily clear that we can repeat it, but the principles that,
Marcy Syms (03:44)
Totally.
Well,
yeah, I don't think we can exactly, but certainly from the standpoint of understanding the contribution that policy and government can play in structuring change of people's opportunity and realities. If there's a political will, there is a way to go about trying to get to something like that.
Daniel Stillman (04:15)
Yeah. You know, one of the things that I found really interesting about about your book, I mean, you've been a witness to so much history. You there's one chapter where you talked about 90s management theory, like being a decade bracketed by what was it? The leadership secrets of Attila the Hun and in 1990 and good to great in 2001. And this kind of like ground shift, like a real
Marcy Syms (04:34)
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman (04:44)
change in perspective from, you know, up top down, you know, command and control leadership to a servant leadership approach. And I know that you've written this whole book about leading with respect and you care about servant based leadership, which I think, you know, is one way to reframe leading with respect. Like ⁓ one like, how did you evolve your own leadership mindset?
Marcy Syms (04:50)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (05:10)
Because in a way, you sort of cut your teeth in one world and then you evolved in another.
Marcy Syms (05:13)
Yes,
yes. By observation, trial and error, listening to people, understanding group dynamics, seeing what was successful.
Things really collapse when everything comes from the top. There's no there there, there's no fiber around the processes. There's no buy-in when something gets rough. One of the things that was interesting in being a non-SYMS board member in other companies was what I learned at SYMS about being a board member, that it only really counts when things get tough.
Daniel Stillman (05:32)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (05:58)
When things are good and every quarter you're up 2%, 3%, whatever it is, there's an opportunity there to do nothing, to sit back and do nothing. And so there's no question about how's the leadership doing. It's when things get rough. It's when there's a quarter that misses. It's when there's a disruptor in your sector. It's if you have a Syms that enters your part of the business.
We were disruptors. We disrupted a supply chain. We created in many respects a different kind of business model for cutting out the middleman in a unique way for people who were buying clothing. There was another disruption years later in the 90s with factory outlet stores. And then after 2000 and into the mid-noughts,
with buying online. But there was disruptors in terms of the vertical retailers like H&M or earlier on, Benetton or all that. Now, each of those entities as they created their own markets experimented with top down or bottom up, right? I believe that the top has to have a vision. I believe
Daniel Stillman (07:19)
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (07:27)
that the larger picture has to be seen by those at the top. And they have to create the language, the opportunity, the environment, and the culture that allows the bottom up to create the infrastructure, to create the process, to make the process sustainable. That's not a top down. Sustainability is a bottom up.
Daniel Stillman (07:45)
Hmm.
Yeah, you know, one of the things that I've always said is that the people who are the front lines of your organization are the people who just know the most about what's actually happening. And so you have to, to use your, this design principle that we're highlighting here, respect or to respect what they are, what they know, what they are seeing and what they're saying as true because they're there.
Marcy Syms (08:06)
Totally .
One of the things we
realized early on, and I remember when I joined the company back in 1978, and we had a plan for growth and how we were gonna grow, but one of the things my dad said to me that I will never forget, he said, the hardest thing I ever did was to get from behind the register and open a second store because that required training and trust.
And in observing him, the only way that he could actually achieve that kind of training and trust was to respect the person he chose to stand behind that register. And we used to say whenever we opened a new store, that that manager and that management team for that community became SYMS to those customers. They weren't seeing us every day.
Daniel Stillman (09:13)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (09:14)
They were seeing the manager who lived in Pittsburgh or Houston or Miami and they saw that manager as Mr. or Ms. Syms So if we don't speak and respect those people, they're not going to respect the customers and you won't have anything. You'll turn around and what you have is a bunch of people whose word of mouth is not working for you.
Daniel Stillman (09:23)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned there's a lot of things to unpack there. One, you talked about YPO and I want to talk about your experience with forums and the ways in which they worked for you and didn't work for you. But you also, I know, talk a lot about boards. ⁓ You know, and I get the sense that in general, most boards are run poorly. And group dynamics is one of my, you know, when we talk about designing conversations well, I assume that you have some insight.
Marcy Syms (09:51)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (10:07)
That there are good practices and approaches and techniques and methods and skills around managing group dynamics in the context of a board and less good ones that produce lesser results. And I'm curious how you coach leaders and audiences to think about managing those dynamics well. Because obviously boards are the backbone of many companies and I don't think they're
Marcy Syms (10:14)
kids.
Daniel Stillman (10:35)
providing as much value as they, as it could be.
Marcy Syms (10:37)
Right, right. Well, I think they don't provide as much value as they could because I don't think they really understand that there's so much that you can do as a member of the board. Because your sphere of influence is every member on the board if you want to take that responsibility. I mean, in point of fact, there's ⁓ an experience that I had where we
had gone through this possible merger, ⁓ not when I was on the Syms board, it was another board and the, because the merger wasn't successful, there were activist shareholders and there were ⁓ analysts out in the press that wanted the CEO to retire, to leave, to be fired basically. And I thought that was a terrible idea. This was usually,
Daniel Stillman (11:31)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (11:36)
successful CEO. The deal didn't work, but he was incredibly respected within the company, within the industry, and was a real ideas man who the board respected. So we created a committee to analyze what went wrong and to make suggestions. Now, if there had not been agreement to do that committee, there would have been a knee-jerk response because of the pressure to start a search.
Daniel Stillman (11:59)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (12:06)
for a new CEO. And having that kind of response often from a board is what you see more than not. Because they're very sensitive. I'm talking about public boards. I'm not talking about private or family businesses, which is a very, very different dynamic. I think that number one, you have to have complete transparency about the governance of the board.
Daniel Stillman (12:06)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (12:35)
As a director, you need to know what are the rules that you're operating under. That's really very important. Is there a lead director? What is the communications between top management in the company and the board? How much exposure do you get to the other members of the C-suite? That's very important. Understanding mission and understanding goals, they're a short term and long term.
How do you check in on those? How do you know who's, as we used to say, rowing in the same direction and those that are starting to row in a different direction and holding you back? And so boards need to know how to check in on both the short-term and the long-term progress of the visionary goals that are being set. Oftentimes the metrics of more specific
Daniel Stillman (13:13)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (13:35)
more numerical goals, more sales up 5%. Well, your sales could be up 5%. And you know what? In the next year, someone else moves into your part of the market and whacks you and you're down 10%. So there is short-term, there's the ability to be resilient. How does a board feel resilient? Mostly, I believe,
Daniel Stillman (13:36)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (14:03)
by looking around the table and seeing that everyone in that room is there for a reason. Everyone in that room has a skill to bring to the table that can enhance the outcome of any situation.
Daniel Stillman (14:18)
Hmm. You know, it's interesting because I hear you talking about transparency, the importance of transparency. Short versus long term thinking, obviously, the long term thinking is is in less abundant supply, I find. And this third thing, which you started with, which was reacting versus responding, it seems like maybe this is just as human.
instinct to react strongly versus to say, well, let's look around and let's take the global picture. I also hear you talk about influence and I'm thinking to myself, what does influence with respect look like when you look around the board and you decide to see the value that everyone's bringing to the table?
Marcy Syms (15:05)
think partly it's having established relationships with other board members. A great thing is to listen. Really get to know your fellow board members ⁓ outside. You know, don't be afraid to pick up the phone. I know you can send an email or a text or go on Instagram or yada yada. Get on a phone, spend 15 minutes. Yeah, I heard you talk about your son's graduation.
How is that going? Did he find a job yet? You know, I mean, these are human contacts and the organism of boardrooms works more smoothly, especially in times of stress, when those people in the room really know each other. They know beyond the resumes. They know beyond the fact that you're an expert in artificial intelligence.
Daniel Stillman (15:53)
Yeah.
Marcy Syms (16:04)
They know other things about you. And ⁓ it's very helpful. It's very, very helpful. I mean, when we were going through the terrible time that we had going from Syms, the retail store, through the reorganization and becoming a real estate company and really losing, you know the only thing I wanted to make sure was that all of our coworkers who had pensions got their pensions.
that they were helped in getting other jobs. But because the board members knew me so well, they knew that that was going to be my priority. My priority was to make sure that this entity remained a place that people could trade their shares, which it did. Stayed on the NASDAQ. That it remained a place that respected the time and the work done by our coworkers.
and gave them their rightful pensions, and it did.
And we gave our clothing vendors 100 cents on the dollar on anything that we owed. Anything. That was the most important thing. So I figured out at the beginning what was most important to me. Getting through this nightmare. That was.
Daniel Stillman (17:25)
Yeah, not many
not many people go through a chapter 11 and make as many people whole as you all did. And that clearly comes from the ethos of respect you have for all of your stakeholders.
Marcy Syms (17:32)
That's correct.
Correct. Correct. And what you're willing to sacrifice yourself. I mean, it doesn't come without a price.
Daniel Stillman (17:45)
Fair. That's very fair. That's very fair. So I'm curious, like you mentioned that this sort of the idea of this book started as, you know, preserving and expanding the story of of your father and your family. Tell me more about like the emergence of respect as a primary value and as a philosophy of leadership. And what do you feel like everyone who's listening should know? You know, if we're going to download as much of your
wisdom and knowledge about this, how can we make it simple and clear and actionable for people to start leading with respect?
Marcy Syms (18:26)
If you want to be heard, you have to listen. That's the number one rule. If you want to be seen, you have to see. If you want someone to make time for you, you have to make time for them. You know, it almost sounds a little bit like going back to the biblical. Well, actually, it's every religion.
Treat others as you would like to be treated.
Daniel Stillman (18:58)
Right. But go first. It seems like you're saying that in a way it's up to you to set the tone for the kinds of conversations you want to be having, the kinds of relationships you want to be having by by bringing that value and that mindset in early and often and not necessarily waiting for the other person to go first.
Marcy Syms (19:01)
on the
Correct.
That's right. That's right. And that takes a certain amount of centeredness. I think, I mean, I don't want to get too philosophical here, but it's okay. Well, philosophically, it's kind of like meditating. It's kind of like, you know, you're finding your center, you're finding your "ahm". And so if someone comes at you, you can "ahm" them out.
Daniel Stillman (19:25)
Why not? We can do whatever we want here.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (19:45)
And really dumb, dumb questions like, I hear you. Where are you coming from? I really want to understand. Where is that coming from? What was your experience? Why was that your takeaway? Because I didn't get the same thing. I'm not saying yours wasn't legit. I'm just saying I would like to understand it. And that kind of maturity
Daniel Stillman (19:48)
Hmm
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (20:15)
⁓ I can call that maturity respect. Respect is something that is a habit because it has to be your default behavior. When you're under stress, when you're attacked, when you feel insecure, respect has to be your default behavior. It's powerful.
Daniel Stillman (20:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (20:44)
It's powerful.
Daniel Stillman (20:47)
So, I mean, it's clear that there's an inner game of respect as well. It's not always easy in these moments. know, sometimes I like to say that nobody has a conversation thermometer. One has not been invented, doesn't exist. But we all know when the conversation is getting hot. And it can be tempting to do things that will increase the temperature of the conversation. And one of the things I hear you talking about is like respect.
Marcy Syms (20:51)
Yes. Yes.
Daniel Stillman (21:18)
is this cooling of the conversation. It really keeps it at this human level. It keeps it at the level of relationship and creating the kind of relationship that you want to continue with. As my mother would say, start as you mean to continue. Yeah, sorry, please go ahead. Sure.
Marcy Syms (21:33)
Well, let me ask you a question.
Do you know when you're being disrespected?
Daniel Stillman (21:42)
Well, I mean, it's an interesting question. One of the things that I think is it's easy to tell yourself the story that you're being disrespected.
Marcy Syms (21:51)
Okay, okay.
Daniel Stillman (21:52)
And
I think sometimes it's, like to just tell myself the story. Well, they're just having a hard time here. Like they're just having, they're having a moment. So I can feel that, sure.
Marcy Syms (21:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Or it's
like the person who cuts you off at the exit. And of course you say in your mind, you go, they're probably doing this because one of their relatives they just found out is in the emergency room. So that you don't get totally pissed off. you don't try to, right? You kind of retell it. I do think that's really an interesting point though. ⁓ If you are already, if your temperature is already high.
Daniel Stillman (22:09)
Exactly.
Right, right. It's a classic retelling.
Marcy Syms (22:32)
Is your interpretation of disrespect something that's going to work against you? And that's why I call it a habit. That's why it constantly takes practice. Because you need to have the ability to measure that in different settings, in different situations, eliciting different responses in you.
Daniel Stillman (22:39)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (22:57)
But I think we all know when we are feeling respected.
Daniel Stillman (23:02)
Yes, that is harder to say. Right. so say more a little bit about that, knowing that feeling for yourself, but also intentionally creating that feeling for other people.
Marcy Syms (23:05)
Ahem.
Yes. Okay. Let's do an example, intentionally creating. ⁓ You have someone coming over to visit you and you're late. ⁓ They were supposed to come over for dinner and you didn't have time to go shopping. ⁓ And not only that, you have an eight o'clock Zoom call. So you can't even hang around and chat over coffee.
Well, my goodness, that person, if they ever talk to you again, I mean, unless this is like a member of the family,
you expect to have this person ever want to be in your presence again? I think that's delusional. So you know what the bricks of
being respected are because you know how you would want to be treated yourself. Now in a work setting that is much broadly appreciated and understood, there are things like following the rules about vacations, understanding that when you have meetings, you give people the agenda beforehand. You ask them if they have anything to add.
How are things going in their part of the business? How about having new hires speak? What's your first impressions? How are things working for you? We value you as a new member of the community. Help us get better. Being asked for your opinion is a huge part of respect. And being asked how you're feeling is even a deeper part of respect.
So there are, think that there's, it's not, it's, we started at Syms because my dad really had this attitude towards every person who walks into the store is spending their hard earned money with us. We have to respect their time. We have to respect their intelligence. We have to respect the fact that they have choices. And we have to respect the fact that
Daniel Stillman (25:30)
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (25:33)
It will be ⁓ based on their good experience that we're gonna be able to grow this company. So all of those things were, as I said earlier, fundamentally foundational to how we looked at the world. And I think in the world of retail, it's the same today. It's not any different. People haven't changed. We really haven't. I think we hide more.
Daniel Stillman (25:47)
Yeah.
Yes.
Marcy Syms (26:03)
Because the world lets us hide more. We can be out there and be ⁓ very talkative in an anonymous way, but we haven't changed as human beings. We're the same.
Daniel Stillman (26:07)
Yeah.
Yeah. There's I want to unpack a couple of things there, Marcy, because you use this phrase, the bricks of respect, which I it's clear that it's something that is ⁓ established, put together, constructed over time. And you highlighted a couple of things. And one is a classic group dynamics ⁓ ingredient, which is like, you know, if everyone in the room is there, then they then why aren't we hearing from them? And it's and it's
Marcy Syms (26:34)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (26:48)
it can be the job of the leader to make sure that everyone feels like their contribution is worthwhile and to ask for it and to pull everybody in to that conversation.
Marcy Syms (27:00)
if you want
to institutionalize that, it can actually not just be on the leader. It could be actually the rules of engagement. We went to, it was a very expensive thing to do, but critical to the culture. We had in-person management meetings. And that meant that all of the people who were in top management and all the stores would get together.
Daniel Stillman (27:09)
Yeah.
Marcy Syms (27:29)
in person at least four times a year and would stay overnight and they'd have dinner together and da da da because we wanted them to learn from each other. Was there someone in Cleveland who could learn something from someone from Washington DC in their customers being different and what could that learning and what could we at the top of the pyramid what could we learn and that
Daniel Stillman (27:41)
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (27:56)
became a very important brick for us, those in-person exchanges. And then we would write up those in-person exchanges. And guess what? You didn't have to be someone from central office. You had something that you wanted to write that needed to be included. Send it. There was always an open door policy. I know this sounds so ridiculous now because people aren't in the office.
that much, but you can have an open door policy on email. You can have an open door policy on any other internal system of technology. It's like having a rule that you must be answered within two hours. That's like having an open door policy.
Daniel Stillman (28:43)
You know, and I can see how each of these rules or guidelines can be seen as a form of respect. But if somebody is reaching out to you, it's just a form of respect to actually respond to them in a reasonable amount of time. You we can't expect that all communications will be responded to all the time forever.
Marcy Syms (28:51)
Yes.
Well, can to look at those bricks. We talk about the bricks.
Yeah, that yeah, the bricks of that is look at your organization. What areas are needed to create a culture? What areas do we need to have a conscious, deliberate and determinative action to create the culture we want?
That would be an exercise that would be worthwhile for everyone who's making decisions in your organization to do.
The commitment. You really, I mean, that's a word that's used a lot these days. But what could be more important than making a commitment to have respect as an important part of your culture?
Daniel Stillman (29:54)
Well, so can we go back to the moment when you feel like you're being disrespected, right? Because this is clearly the moment when it's most critical to find that reserve in yourself to make it your meditation, your practice. I'm sure there's been many times you mentioned this in your book several times, like being the only woman in the room. You've got a you've got a lot of disrespect for a I assume over and over an extended period of time.
Marcy Syms (29:59)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (30:20)
I know many people listening here have sort of forgotten that there was a period of time when, you know, people were like, can a woman even blank? Like, fill in
Marcy Syms (30:28)
Right,
right.
Daniel Stillman (30:31)
But you
were there and it's, you know, it's, so how did you find that reserve of respect when you were being disrespected? Because it's not trivial to do.
Marcy Syms (30:41)
Right. Well, you do have to separate the action from the person in order to find your way back to an appropriate way to behave. I know it sounds like mumbo jumbo, but really, it's really important. I I had a specific experience working at Syms when I was CEO where I had ⁓ uncovered. Unfortunately, I would have been better off not knowing.
Daniel Stillman (30:56)
No, no, no.
Marcy Syms (31:09)
but I had uncovered that there were these rumors circulating ⁓ kind of about me that were completely not true. And I had to figure out the person who brought me this information. Number one, we had to talk about ⁓ what he thought was the reason that this started, what his recommendations might be.
who he thought it might be best for me to speak to. And then in order for me to behave in a way that wasn't overly emotional or kind of in many respects sometimes ⁓ destructive in and of itself because it's an overreaction, ⁓ to separate the people who were saying this from the ⁓ origin and the intent. So there are two things here.
Daniel Stillman (31:43)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (32:05)
Why was it created, number one, and what was the person's? And in repeating this misinformation, ⁓ boy, this sounds very topical, repeating this misinformation, what was the intent of the people who kept the ⁓ whispering going? And there mustn't have been any really understanding of separating that from weakening the company.
⁓ weakening me, disrupting management and all that. And I found that the best way to deal with that was actually to take it on as what I did was to take it on not in a direct way, except for the person who told me about it, because they very much were vested in this. They came deeply and were hurt by it. They were outraged by it.
Daniel Stillman (32:59)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (33:04)
But
I decided to take it kind of in a side way and to nullify it by doing something else. It's kind of like if you go out with people, they have this thing that you're only a vegan and you go out with people and you order a hamburger. You know what I mean? It kind of upsets their whole equilibrium about how they categorized you. So I chose to go about
Daniel Stillman (33:25)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (33:34)
dealing with it by doing something unexpected. That people would have to change their view of me because she did that? ⁓ then she probably didn't do the other thing.
Daniel Stillman (33:38)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (33:50)
And that's just one way of going about it. But it's a good thing not to be ⁓ impulsive.
Daniel Stillman (34:01)
Sure. I agree. I agree.
Marcy Syms (34:03)
Or as
my shrink told me after I joined the family business, I figured I'd better get some help because this emotional stuff is just too complicated. And my shrink told me, you you have to be really on guard about what your anticipation, what your expectations are about people's behavior.
Don't drive the car around your expectations. Drive it within the lines of the real road.
Daniel Stillman (34:37)
Hmm. So there's so many threads that I want to pull on. I want to come back to how you as a leader help yourself. But I want to just put a pin in that because I just I want to just peel a couple of layers of the onion. One is this idea of changing the conversation, not by leading or going straight at the thing, but by just in a way like pouring clean water into into a muddy cup. It's like.
Marcy Syms (35:04)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (35:04)
I'm
just going to pour some clean water into this. That's a very different way of counteracting the narrative and to change the narrative, not through saying, well, I'm not this or I didn't do that is very different than just doing something different and letting people see from from that.
Marcy Syms (35:18)
Yes.
Yes, yes. And it really does take thought and planning and knowing your audience and having a really good grasp of reality to understand what the outcome might be, the outcome you want and what outcomes might be that you don't expect. To do something like that, you need to also go through the collateral damage issue. I mean, was, I think Eisenhower who said that
Daniel Stillman (35:36)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (35:51)
⁓ Plans are dispensable, but planning is indispensable. And that is so, so, so true. You always need to be planning, especially if you're in a leadership position, because every single thing you do takes a ripple effect in your organization. Every single thing you do, you get a new car. You change your shoe brand. Now, those are all things you see.
Daniel Stillman (35:55)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (36:20)
You change the platform you're communicating on. Everything you do has ripple effects. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman (36:27)
communicates.
So the other thing that I want to just sort of like highlight, this is almost a this is a principle that one of my mentors taught me about years ago, which is, in a way, always respecting yourself. It sounds like you're really making decisions many times, and how you respond to someone in a way that it was, you know, responding to disrespect in a way that creates a bigger miscegasse versus
Marcy Syms (36:41)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (36:57)
handling in a way that respects yourself, that does it in a way that creates what you really want to accomplish, not more noise, but the next thing.
Marcy Syms (36:59)
Yes.
You know,
outside of the work environment, but when I was a caregiver, I had the responsibility of taking care at end of life of two of my siblings. It was just an unusual kind of situation. And ⁓ as a caregiver, you're not usually respected. You go into a hospital or you go into a facility and stuff.
And you ask for something and you try to be nice and you try to figure out how busy their day is and you don't get an answer for two hours, three hours, the person leaves their shift and you don't, you know. So the way to get around with that, to use one of your kind of more New York-y expressions is to schmear them.
And you can smear them with something as simple as bringing in a bagel and lox sandwich and saying, you know, I saw that you had to cut your lunch short yesterday. ⁓ that I was, I really felt for you. I wanted to share my lunch. I brought you something, you know, and just having that experience is another way to put people in uncharted territory.
Daniel Stillman (38:04)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (38:28)
Believe
me, they don't expect that to happen to them. They don't expect the irate relative who they never got to answer the day before to come in with a lunch for them. I feel a little bit like what a wonderful world it would be if instead of always raising the temperature, there was a way to say, okay, here's a schmear.
Daniel Stillman (38:41)
Sure.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (38:57)
You know, again, yes.
Daniel Stillman (38:59)
Yeah, that's way to reset the conversation and to say like, look, this is not
personal. I, you know, I know you're really busy.
Marcy Syms (39:06)
Right, right, right.
Daniel Stillman (39:08)
So one of the things I want to highlight before I know we only have a it's shocking that time goes fast. You mentioned YPO. I've been lucky enough to do some work with some ⁓ YPO forums and I'm a big believer in forums. You also mentioned therapy and I'm a I'm a big believer that, you know, in a way a stool can have as many legs as it needs to to be as stable as possible. And it's I'm curious if you can talk about the ways in which you supported and nourished
Marcy Syms (39:15)
Yes.
Daniel Stillman (39:39)
and took care of yourself as a leader. You mentioned some ways that forums worked for you and how hard it was to find a forum that really did support you in the book. What are the things that you feel like helped you nourish yourself and sustain yourself as a leader through all these ups and downs that you lived through?
Marcy Syms (39:56)
Well, I'm talking to you now having learned a lot because I did a lot that I probably wouldn't do exactly the same. would not, you know, I was ⁓ available 24 seven in a family business working with a dad and brothers and sisters. And I was always available and it was very hard to maintain and keep boundaries. One of the things that
made me leave one YPO group and go to another was actually being the only woman in the forum group and thinking I'm always explaining what their experience is and I'm not sure I have any take-home value here. I mean it's nice to feel that what you how you interpret their problem with their female HR director or their
Daniel Stillman (40:34)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (40:54)
new female admin. Yes, it's nice that I can do that, but what am I getting out of that? Nothing. So I went to another forum, but truthfully, YPO forums, as much as I wanted to get something out of it, it wasn't until I joined an organization a few years later called the Committee of 200.
which was for women entrepreneurs. When I and I helped start, we started a very similar structure. We called them councils and it was getting together in regions very similar where we would have a plot line and you would get together once a month and you could follow the plot line of the members of the council. And because you had the plot line, you could come in and have an opinion about when things go off the skits.
Daniel Stillman (41:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (41:53)
And be helpful. And I actually found that in terms of councils and forums that that was more helpful to me. That without having to go through three paragraphs or back stories, they could, I could say, and then when they got to this, they forgot all about that and they went to this and they forgot that I had said that and they went to something else and
Daniel Stillman (42:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (42:21)
I had to work hard to re-steer the conversation back to where it was, and they just got it right away. They just immediately got it, because that's what happens to women in the room. And ⁓ not as much now, but certainly still. ⁓
Daniel Stillman (42:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Marcy Syms (42:47)
I would say NYPO I know because I'm still a member. I'm a gold and you know, I'm an at large and I love the organization with the intent of the organization is, but the committee of 200, the women's forum, the international women's forum, some of the groups. I started a group myself with a friend of mine who is an expert in family business called Daughters of Bosses.
⁓ And that only lasted a few years because women of the age of building their careers are also building families. And, you know, they have to wake up at 4.30 in the morning to work out. So it's really hard for them to be members of organizations beyond that and to have, you know, a career and be planning their career advancement. So the whole ⁓ structure
Daniel Stillman (43:23)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (43:42)
of YPO looks at things and, you know, it's kind of just jumping to another thing I was, I had been reading about. And then I saw in 60 minutes, this whole field of freezing eggs and that women are in their thirties and forties, early forties are freezing their eggs if they don't have. And one woman knows she was a professor from Harvard and I thought she was brilliant. She said, yeah.
It's great, but you know, it doesn't always work when you get to it. And you might not have enough eggs when you get to it. And the best time to have kids is when you're in your 20s. And it's better for the kids when you're in your late 20s than it is when you're in your late 30s. And wouldn't it just be easier if we had universal daycare?
Daniel Stillman (44:39)
Sure. Nice work if you can get it for sure. Yeah.
Marcy Syms (44:42)
Right?
So there's an answer with the whole idea that we know now that women in groups, that if you have 10 people, in order for women to actually feel free to make contributions has to be about 30%. So three out of 10. And I live that. I live that on boards.
Daniel Stillman (45:10)
So one thing I just want to pull one thread I want to pull on is the importance of a group that holds the plot. So I'm assuming that even though the committee was of 200, you were in a group that was a lot smaller. I know in YPO it's, you know, it's five to say, yeah, about 10. And you're meeting with these people. I just, you know, not everyone knows the sort of the essential ingredients of forum. These 10 people you're meeting with them once a month come hell or high water.
Marcy Syms (45:18)
Yes.
yes, about 10. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman (45:38)
And that's why they know the plot because they they can hold space for you. The other thing that you're talking about, which seems really important is it's sort of the flip side of holding the plot. You can't be constantly explaining the fundamentals. And certainly when the bell curve in the room is more men than women and maybe a certain type of man who needs these things explained to them.
Marcy Syms (45:38)
Correct. Correct.
That's right.
Daniel Stillman (46:06)
It really inhibits the ability for you to get the kind of support that you need. But I do want to make it clear from your book, it is clear that being in these groups over years is is like a really foundational kind of support that these people get it. And they help normalize the challenges that you're going through, which are multifarious.
Marcy Syms (46:27)
Listen, it's a certain kind of a person who's a joiner to begin with. It's a certain kind of a person who's willing to share their plot. You know, it's tedious and it can be painful, especially when things are not going as you told everyone you wanted it to go. You're explaining that, indeed it went that way even though I prepared for that way. And there's a shared appreciation.
Daniel Stillman (46:31)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (46:56)
And that shared appreciation is really what makes it possible. ⁓ If you want to call that respecting also, one of the things in the groups that I think is telling is how much of what you've shared in your plot is remembered. Cause you say, Daniel, you don't want to keep going over it because when are you going to get something out of it? And that's why you don't have new members all the time. That's why.
Daniel Stillman (47:14)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marcy Syms (47:24)
it's a certain limited number of absentee, ⁓ it can work. But you know, I don't think that forums should be therapy. You should do that work on your own. You know, I'll never forget, it was an organization and not for profit that I was actually the board chair for a time. And this individual who was very integral to the organization,
Daniel Stillman (47:37)
Mmm.
Marcy Syms (47:53)
was being very disrespectful and very rough to people. And someone influential in the organization took me aside and said, you know, she had a really bad relationship with her father. And I'm sorry, I said, that's what therapy is for. We are not here to help her work out her issues with her dad. And
Daniel Stillman (48:19)
Yeah.
Marcy Syms (48:21)
I say the same thing for councils or ⁓ YPO groups. You're not a therapist. It's a very different process.
Daniel Stillman (48:32)
Yeah. Yeah. And personally, in my own experience, when I'm working with a CEO client that I'm coaching, I'm grateful when they're in a forum and when they have a therapist, because then we can do the other things.
Marcy Syms (48:43)
Yes,
yes, absolutely. yeah. Yeah, someone who is that curious about their own evolution, about their own development. that's a gift. Really, it's a gift to the person because they will grow. And when they're curious enough to get that support from professionals, that doesn't mean a crutch. I don't believe that they're
You know, it's not Nancy Reagan and I have to talk to my astrologer before we make a decision. This is giving yourself the skills, giving yourself the skills and the practice to be present enough to be a useful member of a council and to get the most out of advice.
Daniel Stillman (49:20)
Hmm.
Yeah. So speaking of respect, I want to respect your time. We I really appreciate you being willing to sit down with me and share the message of your book and and the work you've done with the moments we have left. What haven't we talked about that? What else is there that is important to share about respect? What are your parting words, the billboard that we should put up? If you want everyone to drive by, like how should we?
land this conversation.
Marcy Syms (50:02)
Well, if you want to get more respect, you have to give more respect. But perhaps the parting word has nothing to do necessarily with my personal experience, but has to do with my experience as a woman living in America. I worked for the last 15 years for the passage of the ERA, and I believe that not having
Daniel Stillman (50:22)
Hmm.
Marcy Syms (50:30)
women recognized as equal under the law in our Constitution, our federal Constitution, is so disrespectful. To this day, it gets the hairs on the back of my neck to rise up because it is the ultimate sign of disrespect not to be recognized in a place that you love, you work hard for, and that you're making a contribution.
So we need, hope to live to see. I know when I was working with the ERA coalition and now the ERA project, talking to younger women and they say, well, when do you think we'll get it done? And I always used to say, oh, I hope before I die. And they go, oh, come on, it'll happen before then. said, I just like it before I die. That's all, that's all. And that to me as understanding how it feels to be part of a group.
Imagine you're part of this country paying taxes, working hard, believing in the military, running for office, doing whatever needs to be done to make this country great, and you're not in the Constitution. Think about that.
Daniel Stillman (51:50)
think that's a really great place to land. mean, it's a fundamental sign of respect, as you said, to include people deeply. And, boy, well, as my as my folks would say from from your mouth to God's ears, I hope I hope you get many years to enjoy that being part of, of our of our Constitution. And I I'm really glad that you're working on that. That's extraordinary work.
Marcy Syms (51:56)
Yeah. Yes.
Yes!
I hope we all do, yes.
Thank you. Thank you.
Daniel Stillman (52:16)
⁓
Obviously people can find your book on Amazon wherever fine books are sold Is there any other places you'd like to send them to learn about all things? Marcy Syms on the internet
Marcy Syms (52:27)
Well, I do have
a website and marcysyms.com. I would like to ask people if they have the chance to write a review on Amazon. You know, the last time I had a book out, it was about family business and it was in 1992 and there were no Amazon reviews, but I'm hearing from my publisher, Kensington, a third generation family publisher.
that the way to do it now is to be reviewed on Amazon. So I would like to ask that if you can, just a one sentence review would be fine. Just don't, if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all.
Daniel Stillman (53:00)
100 % true.
That's 100 % agree. But it's it is really a lovely story. It's it's a it's a beautiful book. I'm really glad that you wrote it I'm really happy to share it with everyone.
Marcy Syms (53:15)
Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. It's been a delight. Thank you.
Daniel Stillman (53:29)
Thank you. I appreciate that.