In this episode of Ecolab’s podcast, “IMPACTful Dialogues,” host Dexter Davis talks with Tiffany Atwell, executive vice president, Government Relations.

In an increasingly polarized world, having an open mind and a willingness to listen creates a greater understanding within our company and our communities.

As the Executive Vice President of Government Relations at Ecolab, Tiffany Atwell puts this sentiment into practice every day as she collaborates with government officials and stakeholders all over the world. In the latest episode of IMPACTful Dialogues, Dexter Davis, senior vice president, Human Resources, Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, spoke with Tiffany about her role and discussed the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in achieving business goals.

Here are some highlights:

The written highlights of this interview have been edited for clarity and readability while preserving the original intent and meaning of the conversation.

Dexter: I know you recently came and spoke to our HR team and talked a little bit about government relations and expansion, and how you are really ambassadors of what we do here at Ecolab and play those key partnership roles with different government officials from all over the world and different backgrounds. And it makes me think a little bit, what are some challenges that you see with that?

Tiffany: Being an Ambassador for Ecolab is an honour for me and my team because we believe in the mission of the company and the value we deliver to our customers and society. We play a unique role because we have the power of ensuring our customers are their most effective and profitable but also protecting the vital resources of society. Some of the challenges are historically, we as a company have not really wanted to be out front to tell our story and share our value proposition. The first step is changing our mindset internally, so that we will be at the table to share this information with key stakeholders.

Globally, it is a challenge to get people to understand the power of water and the water energy nexus. Therefore, we have to be strategic and tell the story to the right people the right way. This is why the collaboration that we do internally — working with our amazing communications team, which has been instrumental in amplifying the messages, or making sure Christophe and some of our other amazing business leaders are actually out front telling the story along with my team. The One Ecolab approach is powerful and resonates with key stakeholders.

Dexter: I can’t help but think about that — to be able to do that and have those conversations, just from a people perspective, from different people, different backgrounds, you’ve got to have that level of comfort with different cultures, and really have that mindset to employ an inclusive culture and people being their authentic selves. How do you think that plays out in your role? And then also, how do you employ that, with your team?

Tiffany: Let me say first it does start with my team. I just did an interview for a candidate today, and that’s what I started with. To let her know the expectations are that we collaborate, we listen to diverse perspectives of our Ecolab team members to ensure we have the best strategies formed by diverse opinions. We are looking at how we can build up our team members, and that their success is our success. How you get to the win is more important than the actual win. And so I started with my team.

I think the importance of that is in any given country that we’re working in — whether it’s the Southern U.S., Northern part of the U.S., Asia, Europe or Africa — you have different cultures and people have different ways of thinking. When you go in with an open mind looking at “Ok, here’s a diverse way of thinking, I’ve never thought of it this way,” and when you’re open to that, people respond in a different way.

I was just in Saudi Arabia. I had never been there before. And what I found was I had to have an open mind going into the country — not what I was seeing on the news or some of those preconceived notions — because when I was open, accepting of the culture and willing to learn about their culture, -- I hope they could see that willingness and that openness. So, many of the government interactions or interactions with customers were positive for me and i hope for the people I interacted with.