How do we flourish as human beings if we haven’t properly dealt with past trauma? What happens to our society when severe trauma leads to crimes and convictions? How do we stay optimistic when ⅔ of those convicted will become repeat offenders? These are some of the big ideas that drive Dr. Roberick Nunn, Venture Partner at Learn Capital, and cofounder of Concordance a holistic, integrated, evidence-informed re-entry model that is working to end the devastating cycle of reincarceration. On this episode of Venture to Flourish, we talk to Rod about the role past trauma plays in criminal behavior, how we can improve reincarceration, and why hiring a felon might not be a bad idea.
Rod on why a housing or job-only strategy won’t prevent reincarceration?
Some of the responses to the issue have been a housing first strategy. Let's get them in secure housing, and that'll be a way to go at it. That is a failed proposition. Some responses have been a jobs first strategy, just get them a job. That'll solve the problem. It is true that there is a correlation between having secure housing and having some success in life and having a stable job and having some success post incarceration, but it's missing the point. The people who were able to do that, and are successful are those who would have been successful without, and it's not the two thirds of the people who go back and who are really, really in need of a healing first approach.
Rob on the importance of a healing first approach to rehabilitation:
If you don't stabilize people and start addressing mental health, substance use, and the sort of the cognitive distortions that they bring to their life situation, there's no chance that any employment, education, or training program is going to be successful. As you know, two thirds of the people who go to prison return to prison, and that really is a problem of behavioral health.
Rod on the impact of trauma in the prison population:
I saw gang violence, I saw people fighting. It's community violence. It's the violence that happens at the home. It's the abuse and neglect, and all of those things that folks have to contend with. And then when you go to prison, one of the first things that happens to many people when they go to prison is they lose the ability to be empathetic, the ability to smile and enjoy life. I'm not one here to say that people should not be punished for crimes they commit. But I am here to say that we need a better response to getting them ready to re-enter the workforce, because over half the crimes that are committed in our country are committed by people who've been to prison.
Rod on the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to preventing reincarceration:
Sometimes innovation is really interdisciplinary, right? It's when these sort of disparate things that don't necessarily go together, come together to form something much more powerful. That is the story. You can’t address it with housing first. You can't address it with a job first. You can't only address it with behavioral health, because you have to do something with folks, once they get treatment, right? And so having it all together under one roof operating with the right sequence, and the right mix of services is the thing that works.
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Evan Baehr 0:02
Imagine this. You're a founder and you've been charged with solving a problem most people think is unsolvable. The solution to the problem doesn't involve developing a new software, leveraging AI or automating operations. But it's a problem that directly affects the lives of 100 million Americans. And indirectly, the entire population of the US. Many talented founders and funders have come before and failed. But now it's your responsibility to find the solution. Would you take on a challenge like that? Would you be willing to try to solve unsolvable problem?
Well, our guest today did and he and his team kind of cracked it.
I'm Evan Baer. And this is venture to flourish a podcast from learn capital for founders, investors and leaders who are working to build ventures that drive what we call human flourishing. Our guest today is Dr. Roderick Nunn, a learn venture partner and co founder of concordance, it's a holistic, integrated, Evidence Informed Reentry Program, helping people leave prison and reenter society that is working to end the devastating cycle of what we call re incarceration or recidivism. You know, two thirds of those in prison in the United States are rearrested within five years of release. Yeah, two out of every three come back to prison. But rod and his team developed a system that reduced that rate by 56%. Join us as we discuss rods work his journey from trombonist to change maker, and why we must understand how trauma works, if we want to understand the problem of incarceration. On today's episode of venture to flourish, we are so excited to have Dr. Robert Nunn with us. He's currently the Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion dei for SSM health, after a close to a decade leadership experience and working on the big topic of this conversation, which is recidivism, sort of a wonky word, but essentially the challenge of how does our criminal justice system how do our prisons rehabilitate care for it help people reenter society? Successfully, the track record there is pretty bad. And Rod is truly in a single digit number of leaders in the country who have done amazing work and helping heal. What is a pretty broken system. Right. A lot to cover today. First, tell us this. Do you currently have your trombone in the office with you right now?
Rod Nunn 2:27
It's across the room on a stain. Okay.
Evan Baehr 2:30
Okay. We're give us some of the trombone history. You've had quite a quite a history of being a performer, right?
Rod Nunn 2:39
Yeah, yeah. And so I grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, which has all the negative social gravity that you could think about crime and drugs and all of that stuff. And so one of the things you have to do is stay busy. And so I spent all my years and formative years in the band room, and pretty became a pretty, pretty good trombonist, all state musician, and, and quite the composer. And so I started out my college years, the Berklee College of Music and finished up at a local university. And so yeah, I was saying music really shaped the way, you know, I hear and see the world. And Trump has been a part of that.
Evan Baehr 3:15
I've never really understood the allure of the trombone, I've got to be honest, I was an alto sax guy and the trombone, it just sort of felt like a, I hope this isn't offensive, but like an oversized kazoo, making the case for the trombone. What Why is the trombone?
Rod Nunn 3:30
Well, it's interesting that you say that. So in fifth grade, the band director said, Hey, What instruments do you guys want to play? And I held up three fingers, thinking trumpet and said trombone. And so a couple weeks later, he brings these instruments back, and I did a trombone with the slide. I'm like, What in the world is going on here? But I knew I could be good at anything I tried, and not many people were very good at it. No, it is not an instrument that you that people want to hear. But it really, really ended up playing no pun intended playing very well for me, because, you know, I had to be the best listener, I had to be the best collaborator. You know, I had to be a section leader. You know, I ended up being a great jazz musician, an innovator, improvisation they call it. So it really had a profound impact on you know, my leadership years later. And my
Evan Baehr 4:25
short stint as not a great jazz musician. I did do a few summer jazz camps. And I do think there's some kind of life lessons or some leadership lessons out of some of that I remember trading fours, sort of the approach of improv back and forth. And it's such a beautiful metaphor of, you're both trying to imitate enough the other person to be consistent with them, but pick up on their pattern, riff on it a little bit and send it back. And kind of interesting metaphor for just how to how to play well with
Rod Nunn 4:54
your essay, metaphoric is the lead sheet and it's got four corners on it. There's a model there to follow. Little bit of fidelity, but you get a lot of space to kind of create and make it the best song for that day. And I love that.
Evan Baehr 5:08
Well, maybe maybe we'll sneak in a few minutes to hear the trombone later in this conversation. But let's fast forward a little bit. We're definitely talking about, we're talking about recidivism. Today, we're talking about prisons during the criminal justice system, give us some of your pathway, after after that childhood, your pathway to getting really passionate about and taking a leadership role in this challenge of our criminal justice system. Give us some of that story.
Rod Nunn 5:29
Yeah, yeah, thanks for asking. So my calling calling in life really is to develop systems that help people be the best versions of themselves in whatever space, you know that they're operating again, and then ended up taking the shape of workforce development. So I would consider myself, you know, a workforce development expert, right. And so I ran the state workforce departments for two governors in Illinois, and Missouri. And part of that responsibility of leading the public workforce systems is designing programs to serve, you know, all the citizens, including those marginalized citizens. And so in those early days, in my leadership career, you know, I was working on reentry teams in the state government trying to coalesce assets around, you know, how we work with those populations. And we weren't very good at it, to be honest with you. Years later, I went to be a community college leader, campus president, and we had some good training programs, servicing some of the population, some of the population and probably those who, you know, who would have been okay, without us, because they weren't going back to prison, they were well enough to go to school, right? It wasn't until I got the concordance, and 2016, where I understood that really, the model needed to be a healing first approach. Now, if you don't stabilize people, and start addressing mental health, substance use, you know, sort of the cognitive distortions that they bring to their life situation, there is no chance that, you know, any employment or education or training program is going to be successful. You know, as you know, two thirds of the people who go to prison return to prison and you know, three to five years, or at least they get re arrested, and most go to prison. And that really is a problem of behavioral health. And so one of the things I was able to do, concordance, which is one of the preeminent art national organizations that's working to solve that problem, and wants to come in on the ground floor and build a workforce development program nested inside of a behavioral health organization. And we had great success, using the behavioral health programming as sort of a pre employment tool to get people in a healing first approach, and then gradually introducing them to the world of work first, on a part time basis, really in a simulated work environment in the facility in a service facility initially, and then part time employment, full time employment, all while providing continuing therapy, case management and coaching as they progress and get settled and transitioning into life. And it was very, very effective when I left there, and I'm still on the board there. But when I left there, just a few months ago, we had served over 1200 individuals, and we had a 56% reduction in recidivism, return to prison. And that is really unheard of, particularly when you are servicing, the hardest to serve, and not just cleaning off the top of those, you know, the 1/3 of people who are not going back to prison anyway, anybody can develop a program overnight to do something for those folks. But it's the ones who are suffering from mental health and substance use disorders, really, really that are struggling the most, you know, with transitioning back into society,
Evan Baehr 8:27
and want to learn more about how the program works, and some of the magic behind this 50% Plus reduction, help our listeners understand a little bit about the prison population. Probably you have to do some generalizations. But how large is it? Can you generalize a little bit about their family situation? Or how they got there? Or help us get a window into that world?
Rod Nunn 8:50
Yeah, probably the best way to really think about it is through the lens of trauma. And when we say trauma, we're talking about, you know, those those life events that really, really do damage into the brain, whether it's a horrific trauma of abuse, neglect, or something like witnessing violence in your home and your community over a lifetime, you know, and then going to prison. It's very traumatic in itself. And so when when you experienced trauma over and over again in your life, particularly chronic trauma, the brain's ability to really tolerate stress and make good decision. It's it's just not possible, right? And so then you get the CO occurring conditions, conditions that go with that typically, self soothing behavior, stuff confused, and certainly mental health challenges that go along with that. And so the ACE research, the adverse childhood experience research over a number of years show that people with trauma, you know, have poor health health scores over their lifetime and they certainly don't have any ability to go to work and keep a job. They have high you know, psychopathy rates and mental health challenges and Everything that goes with that. And so the folks in prison, you know, have that in spades. And so that that really is the core issue is being able to help people heal from the trauma. And so what that looks like too, is what we call in the field of like the sort of cognitive distortions. And I'll give you just a quick example. A person, you know, with that background shows up in the workplace, and they walk, they walk by a group of people, and a group of people say they're just kind of laughing and joking around, right? That person, because of the way their brain is processing information, it's thinking that, hey, they're, they're laughing at me, they're making fun of me cuts that don't belong here. And so then, you know, then that triggered a different response. And all of a sudden, this person is seen as someone who's not a good fit here, because of the response to something they experienced, right. And so if you're, if you don't get a person into a framework, where they can interpret that the right way, and have the right response to that, there's no way they're going to be successful in the community, the home or the workplace. And so you need a therapeutic intervention over time to help them heal. And so that response isn't going to happen overnight, right? That that, that healing is a is a, it's not a linear progression, it is something that is up and down over time. And so you got to have a support mechanism around this person. And, you know, you ask the scientists, what what helps you heal, and what helps your brain rewire. This is simple work, it's love and support. Right. And so you've got to, in your, in our response to this issue, we we talked about rehabilitation, you know, which is a joke, and some of the governmental responses to it, it really requires a skilled team of therapists, case managers to wrap their arms around this person over a period of time to help them you know, develop the right responses and the right habits of mind to be able to deal with that. Does that make sense?
Evan Baehr 11:55
Yeah, so it sounds like the degree of trauma, the different kinds of trauma that occur in the lives of people that end up in prison and therefore are trying to reenter society are so ubiquitous, they're so deep, they're so widespread, is it right to say that a standard reentry program that sort of says, the challenge is that they need a job. So we're gonna give them skills to have a job, you're saying is kind of missing the point that like, it's not necessarily, it can't only be about them acquiring a certain skill, to get a paying job, they are people that have been severely wounded and need to go through that therapeutic process with a bunch of professionals to be able to then get the skill and get the job is that a fair way of thinking about it?
Rod Nunn 12:38
That's a great way of thinking about it. And so some of the responses to the issue have been, you know, like a housing first strategy, like, Let's get them and secure housing, and that'll be a way to go at it that that is a failed proposition, some responses have been a jobs first strategy, let's get them a job. You know, and that'll solve the problem. I mean, it is it is true that there was a correlation between not having secure housing and having some success in life and having a stable job and having some success, success at life, post incarceration, but it's missing the point of, of, you know, the people who were able to do that, and, and are successful are those who would have been successful without, and it's not the two thirds of the people who go back and who are really, really in need of a healing first approach. And so that is, that is a common common mistake. And it's one that's cost us dearly, in this country, because as you've probably heard, I mean, United States has 5% of the global population, but 25% of the world's prison population. So we are a country that has used incarceration to solve a lot of our problems, like some of the mental health response in this country now is one, let's just put them in prison, particularly after we got really aware of the lack of community community mental health resources. And then the other thing I'll just point out about the demographics of prison, it is a problem that people of color are over represented. And so for example, 32% of our country's population is represented by African Americans and Hispanics, compare it to 56% of the prison population. And so I mean, you're talking about, you know, a prison population of 6.8 million or seven, 7 million of folks incarcerated, but you know, African Americans and Hispanics making up more than a representative share. And so, you know, if we solve this problem, we're also solving the problems of diversity, equity and inclusion as well.
Evan Baehr 14:37
My math might be off on this. And maybe this isn't even a statistical question. But when you guys think about the sources of these areas of trauma in the life stories of the people that ended up in prison, I mean, what do you think about what could be sort of widespread trauma occurring in the African American community or in the Hispanic community? Are you guys looking at how that's happening in people's lives before they end up in prison. Yeah, so
Rod Nunn 15:02
because when you've worked closely with the population, you know, you get a chance to look at their own self reported incidents, you know, so we saw a lot of violence, you know, so from, from the standpoint of, you know, just, you know, the the neglect and abuse with sexual sometimes, you know, unsex nonsexual, that is certainly part of it, but a lot of violence, witnessing murder, loved one being killed somebody in your space, committing an act of violence of being on the other end of violence. So certainly a lot of that, and then just in your interaction in the community, I've never been to prison. But I grew up in a community where lots of people around me went to prison, and just in my space, going to school coming from school hanging out. Now, I've seen gunfire up and close, close and personal two or three times in my life. Right. So just imagine what that means. So I saw gang violence, you know, I saw people fighting, you know, and so it's that kind of a thing. It's the community violence, it's the violence that happens at the home, you know, it's the abuse and neglect, and all of those things that folks have to contend with. And then when you go to prison, one of the first things that happens to many people when they go to prison, is they lose the ability to be empathetic, the ability to you know, smile and enjoy life. Because I mean, that is seen as a weakness, right. And so yeah, I mean, with controlled movement, 24 hours a day, I mean, it's not like we are doing anything to heal trauma, as part of that experience, too. And I'm not one here to say that, you know, people should not be punished for crimes they commit. But I am here to say that we need a better response to getting them ready to re enter the workforce, because over over half the crimes that are committed in our country, are committed by people who've been to prison. So it's a public safety issue, too. So, you know, for folks who think, you know, that, you know, the whole sort of, let's address, you know, helping us population, you know, aren't really thinking about it in terms of how do I make my community safe. And so there's a public safety argument here, too, about the importance of this work. And then there's an economic equation to about this untapped source of talent, and all the vacancies and critical roles and critical industries that we're facing to so I think there's an economic part of this, there's a, you know, there's the public safety part of this, and then there's just sort of a moral and ethical obligation, like, what's the right thing to do? You know, with respect to this social problem.
Evan Baehr 17:43
I think I used to be more on the side of an incorrect understanding of trauma. And I would say something like this, you know, Rod, give me a break, these kids grew up in a poor neighborhood, and they see some crimes committed, what that like, makes it necessary that they're gonna go commit crimes. Now, if they were responsible people that made good choices with their life. They don't have to commit crimes, because they saw crimes happening when they were kids. I think I used to think more along those lines. I love reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score. And just learning more about trauma as not witnessing a set of facts happen. But trauma can mean literally, we rewiring the brain. Similar for people that don't know a lot about trauma for a kid that grows up seeing violence, experiencing different kinds of abuse. Help us understand what's what's going on for that child.
Rod Nunn 18:40
So having one of the things we did concordance was you know, as part of that healing, first approach, before we would even sign an employee or partner up to work with our folks, we would go on site and do some, some pretty deep trauma training, to to make sure the folks who were supervising these individuals were really, really understood what was happening, we want to make sure they understood that, you know, trauma is something that many people experience, but this particular population, perhaps, are experiencing chronic trauma, meaning it wasn't just you know, the one event during their childhood, it was being exposed to negative events, stressful events over and over and over again. And the things that that would do to the brain and the way the brain was wired to be able to compensate for something we call stress tolerance. So as a successful executive, when I encounter a stressful event, I know how to pause and to do some deep breathing, to do some self care to make sure that I'm taking care of myself, I stay within a certain zone of behavior and responding to stress. And it's called stress tolerance. Well, these individuals don't have the skills to be able to do that. They're wired in a very different way. And so Oh, you know when, when you, for example, the typical response of any employer when you when you have, when you have a death in the family, we have those that have this very acceptable practice called bereavement leave, you get to take some time away, right. But let's just say you have an event, when a supervisor gives you a direct command to do a specific task, and you feel a sense of disrespect and being slighted. Well, what's happening in the brain is that you're having a deep reaction, and you are losing your ability to make good decisions, because you were triggered. And so we want to make sure that supervisors understand there's a, there's a way that you would want to communicate to any employee to make them feel valued and welcomed and a sense of belonging in the workplace. But with this particular population, this particular worker, we want to make sure that you know that they they feel respected and they don't feel slighted. And it's not to say that, you wouldn't treat all your workers like that, but you got to understand, you know, when you see a certain behavior, things are going well, for two weeks, all of a sudden, something's going on with this person is responding differently, chances are, there was a stressor that happened, either in the in the company or in their life, that's causing them to behave a certain way. And so in our model, in the model of healing, first, you would want to make sure that that employment experience includes just an understanding and appreciation for what's happening with these particular individuals.
Evan Baehr 21:32
So a lot of what you're saying makes sense to me. I'm new to the space, but it feels a little bit intuitive, kind of like these people been through hard times, you can't just give them a skill and hope they get a job like in wish them good luck. But you guys pulled off something, not just like 5% better, not just like 10% better, but like, over 50% better than what I imagined are dozens, hundreds of agencies in for profits and nonprofits and whatever, give us a little bit of like the secret sauce. What gave you guys just world class lights out performance in helping these people reenter society successfully?
Rod Nunn 22:11
Yeah, it's that's a really good question. I've actually thought about that a lot over the years. And, you know, the way I think about it is you will not find anywhere in this country or anywhere in the world, where you would take a behavioral health organization that's doing really good work on substance use mental health, you know, just sort of treatment and marry that with an organization that's, that's providing housing, and legal services, legal services, meaning that when you get out of prison, that you have some warrants or something like that, you would want to make sure that they don't get picked up by the local police department go sit right back in jail again. And that's kind of the start the process over. Right, so. So this sort of comprehensive menu of services and one operating environment, a mental health organization, on an education on an adult educational approach, where you're addressing basic educational skills with job readiness skills, and some digital literacy skills. And having a social entrepreneur numeracy of model where the employment is inside of that same space. And so being the employer of record, with your own sort of staffing agency, and having contracts within industries, then allows you to take that whole approach and gradually introduced a world of work to these individual, but having that in one operating environment, it's very unique, because, you know, these are not models that are organizational visions, and operating principles that go together. These are, you know, an employment agency and a behavioral health agency, they don't, they don't operate with the same operating principles. And so, you know, concordance was able to do that and do that effect. But it was really, really hard work. And so for example, before the staffing agency could employ someone, they had to complete a workplace simulation, two weeks of simulated work experience in the therapeutic environment. So they would, you know, they would go to workplace simulation in the morning before hours a day, and then they would go and see their case managers and therapists in the afternoon, but even before they can actually get to the workplace simulation, they had, you know, like something like eight weeks of behavioral health treatment, you know, and so there it was, like this progressive approach, like and, and they knew that employment was coming up, but in order to, to get there, you'd have to finish her inpatient outpatient program, which required, you know, treatment plan that would be required clean drug screens, you know, every week and things of that nature. So, to your question, it was the integration, you know, of these disciplines. And, you know, sometimes innovation is really interdisciplinary, right? It's when these sort of disparate things that don't necessarily go together, come together to form something much more powerful that that is the story. It's you know, you can you can address it. But with housing first, you can't address it with a job first, you can't only address it with behavioral health because you got to do something with folks once they say get treatment, right. And so having it all together under one roof operating, you know, with the right sequence and the right mix of services is the thing that works. And then, you know, the whole thing's got to make sense economically to Evan. So, the average cost of incarceration in state prisons in this country is $33,000. A year. Right? And so people, when they go back to prison, two thirds of them, they go back for five to seven years. And so nine, so you do the math, right? What if you can, you know, if you can spend, you have a program is as comprehensive as what I just described, and do it for, you know, 10 grand per participant, you still you're still or, you know, way, way underneath the cost of incarceration, for individuals, right. And so that that was part of the model to it's being able to go to state governments and say, hey, you know, if, if you work with us, you know, we can save you X amount of dollars, and we only ask you to pay us, and if we keep a person from going back to prison, so, I mean, just one thing to say you can put this model together, but you got to do it in a way that, you know, that allows it to work economically as well.
Evan Baehr 26:20
Guys, that basic math, if two thirds going back to prison, back for five to seven years, go with the conservative side of that five years, 33,000, round down to 30,005 times 30 is under $50,000. Do my math, right? I mean, that is basically lets you, if state governments were rational economic decision makers, as long as it only cost them $149,999, they would choose to just pay concordance to solve all these problems. So that's what happened, right? You guys went to state government, and they said, We'll give you $140,000. And that's why you guys operate in every single city in every single state. Is that how it played out? I'm assuming there's, there's a hunch that didn't exactly work that way.
Rod Nunn 27:03
We would only we would only get that whole pay for performance model, we will only get, you know the cost per individual for our cost of services, right, which was significantly less than at a scale. And so when I left concordance with a few months ago, we were in the state of Missouri State of Illinois, and then talking to the state of Georgia, the state of Kentucky, the state of Utah, the state of Minnesota, they are in process of upscaling nationally now with with that economic model.
Evan Baehr 27:30
Obviously, for people that are excited about concordance, there's a website that can donate, what are ways is we have listeners who don't know a lot about the person system, what are steps people can take to learn more about it? I mean, are there opportunities to volunteer or mentor or bring concordance to your own backyard?
Rod Nunn 27:45
Yeah, and I would say, you know, there are opportunities to do it, you know, with concordance and, and other, you know, other similar organizations. And so when I, whenever I talk about, like, what's the call to action for this work, I would always, I would start with, you know, just sort of make sure you understand, you know, the public policy environment with respect to what's happening and criminal justice in your state, in your community. You know, that's the first thing you know, it's just sort of the where can you, you know, advocate for for good, smart, you know, policymaking. I think everybody can do that. There are opportunities to volunteer for events. You know, there are a lot of things that happen throughout the year, in terms of fundraising activities, and different things, like, for example, a concordance, you know, every holiday, every major holiday, whether it was Thanksgiving, and Christmas or Christmas, even like around Halloween, we want to do something so that we've made sure that individuals can can really have fun and a good time with their families, you know, now we want to make sure that people not only, you know, get, you know, keep them going back to prison, but we don't want them living in the margins of life, like we want them to thrive, you know. And so part of that, too, is just sort of making sure that these folks have a good Christmas, for example. And so what we would do is we would get donors together, and we would say, Hey, here's here's a shopping list with a bunch of toys and different gifts that kids of incarcerated parents or people with this kind of person we want. And so we would get all kinds of people who would buy these gifts. And so we would do this affordable holiday shopping event, we bring volunteers and to wrap the gifts and and so then the participants then would go and they would go shopping at a lower, you know, the, the cost of the gifts were, you know, very affordable for them. These are people who are in a therapeutic environment or are just taught at work. And so guess what they could, they would come home with a bunch of gifts, right? And it did something for their kids to see mom and dad really, really providing a good Christmas. It does something for the participants so that they can feel a sense of you know, just like hey, I was able to purchase this for my family. So there's there's organizations who do that kind of thing. And so you can always seek out you know, volunteer opportunities and all So just to be, you know, a myth breaker, and when people say things like, this person just got out of prison, you know, don't hire, don't hire him he can, he or she can't be a good employee for you or, you know, you see somebody in the community, you know, who it's well known that this person, you know, had a troubled childhood, and there's nothing we can do for him. I mean, there's something we can do, you know, we have, we have a model that works, you know, and just sort of educating people on the importance of healing. And what that looks like, I think would be go a long way to reducing some of the stereotypes we have about the population, one of our big areas of work at concordance was, you know, finding industries that were felon friendly, you know, that's a very important thing, felon friendly, meaning, you know, they actually hire individuals with criminal records, and then those industries who are willing to expend some resources to work with us, and for example, given us access to the supervisory team, so that we can train them on trauma and how to best work with the population, but the whole area of criminal background checks in, and there's been lots of experiments in public policy with them. And so you might have heard about some states and some employers went to the bandbox, right, it sounds like all the rage. But you know, when you do this work every day, you tend to follow the unattended kinds of questions. So I'm not allowed to look at any data that an applicant would share with me on a criminal record that they self disclose to me in the application process and whether or not they have a criminal history. So what do I do as a hiring manager, I tend to now look at the name and see if the name says anything about the characteristics of the individual. And so we saw I mean, this is well researched empirical research. And so we saw where organizations where then unconscious bias, you know, came to the surface, because now I'm looking at the name and, and excluding people based on a name, even if I didn't exclude them, I had, you know, those predispositions when I came into the process. And so bento box never really, really worked well, from that perspective.
Evan Baehr 32:01
So what is the right way or an employer to think about hiring the felon? Should they be blind to it? Should they worry about it every day? Should they think about bringing in outside services to help that person be successful? How should employers think about that?
Rod Nunn 32:16
Yeah, I love that question. I haven't, what I would say to an employer, and I've had so many conversations with like, Chief Human Resource Officers about about that very question. First of all, they need to understand that this is the, you know, the most grateful artists working person you're going to find. So when a person has come through a program like concordance, you are mitigating your risk by making sure there's a healing first strategy. And so when they get to me, we know the issues of mental health and substance use, and all those things have been taken care of. And so actually, my risk are very, very low in terms of what might happen. And then there have been these empirical studies that have shown, for example, there was a study that looked at all five branches of the military, there was a study by Deborah pager, harvest sociologists, incredible results, they looked at folks with foul guns and without felons who were employed by our US military and all five branches. And what they found was that those with felony records performed better, and then those without telling any records, they were no more likely to have any workplace incidents of violence, they moved through the ranks even faster than those without criminal records. And so there are other stories, other research that would confirm that as well. And that has been our story of concordance. And so yeah, this is a very grateful, hard working population that has a lot of contributions to make in your work. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, is to make sure you're very, very careful about how you present that to your internal workforce, and so that you don't, you know, breach confidentiality, you know, and introducing, you know, letting everybody know what's going on there. But you know, you want to protect the rights of these individuals, and treat them like every other employee, but you do want to make sure that people understand that a criminal record is not a scarlet letter. You know, it shouldn't be a scarlet letter that you were that suggest to your you know, your colleagues and co workers that you are, you know, some some sort of a way a bad hire are going to create trouble for for your colleagues.
Evan Baehr 34:18
As you think about the winds of concordance, do you have a favorite or just Could you tell us about one of the graduates of it, just to give us an example of how this is affecting people's lives?
Rod Nunn 34:30
Yeah, one of my one of my favorite stories, I have a lot of a lot of affinity for many, many participants. But this one I will hold near and dear to my heart because this lady she was an older lady who went to prison for very, very violent crime. And she came out and she participated in our first workplace simulation class and we had a simulated warehouse environment, where we were training individuals, you know how to do that. work on behalf of one of our industry partners. And she was illiterate. We got her through the simulation and we sent her to work. And we started getting his feedback from the supervisor who were we had trained that she just was not able to pick up some of these concepts. She was okay when we would have her on a task that she was repeating over and over and over and over again. But as soon as we needed to move around to a different area of the warehouse to work on a different issue, a different order, she was struggling mightily. And so what we did was we consulted with one of our adult educators who understood learning disabilities, and very, very simple recommendation game, as it were, see, learns, by looking at pictures and illustrations, like she's a visual learner, and then she needs to see it modeled. So if we can think we can have the career coach, sketch out some of those more complicated concepts, and then we can make sure that the company has pairing her with an experienced worker who can show it to her, she's gonna be fine. So we implemented that. And she's still there today. I mean, she had the longest to win I love after six years, she had the longest tenure of any concordance participant, right? And she was, I mean, everybody loved this lady, like, you know, she just the sweetest lady, you know, committed a horrendous crime. It just isn't a person. You know, if you look at her profile, and the trauma that was behind all of that, like, you wouldn't, you wouldn't think that she was worthy, or able, you know, to be successful, but after going through that healing, first model, you know, and getting the whole wraparound support over time, that could help solve those problems, you know, in the moment of life as they were happening to her as he was trying to transition back. And it was just an incredible story. For me. There's, there's there's dozens more like that, you know,
Evan Baehr 36:51
I've got to ask you how you stay hopeful. Amidst all these really hard stories that you've seen. You've seen stories of people in prison now, who had horrific childhoods, who had horrific things happen to them, who in some cases did horrific things to other people, the cost of damage to their spouses to their kids? How do you make sense of all this? And how do you stay hopeful and install this work that you're doing?
Rod Nunn 37:17
One of my favorite books of all time is called leadership on the line by Ronald Heifetz. And Marty Lansky, I got it, I went to Harvard one study, one summer of 2006, I was a state workforce director, Missouri at the time. And this book, it talks about the dangers of leading, and it gives you some strategies on how to take care of yourself through the dangers of leaving. And there's this chapter that's called Sacred Heart. And it's built on the sort of the hypothesis that, you know, we're all born as sort of these innocent, curious, you know, creations of God. And then as you live your life, you know, life can beat all of that out of you over time. You know, so the idea of self care, right? And how you take care of yourself through it all. And so, you know, so with Sacred Heart, one of the things that I learned and began to practice that summer was, you know, just to make sure, you know, that I was, you know, doing the things exercising, eating right, doing some things that I enjoy practicing, you know, gratitude, I take care of myself, you know, and so one of the things I did inside of concordance, so your question, which is an excellent question, Evan, you know, if you go to school to be a social worker, or a professional counselor, they teach you self care, if you go to school, to be an educator, you know, or even a lawyer or a housing professional or something like that. These are other roles that we had inside of the organization, you don't learn self care, you know, and so that was a real important thing for me, like, whenever I was talking to my career coach and my career educator, you know, we're talking about the work and our operating plans and different deliverables, but just as important, what are you join this month to practice self care, you know, because I had to live that to take care of myself because I, there's a lot of bad news. If you're saying you're reduced recidivism by 56%. There's people who went back to prison. You know, there are people who overdosed on on fentanyl, right? There's, I mean, that's just the nature of the work. And so yeah, you don't take care of yourself. You don't stand a chance.
Evan Baehr 39:20
We love the idea of being in the arena, the great Teddy Roosevelt speech he gave, and a big part of that is when you're in the arena, you're getting beaten up, you're striving and striving over again, often coming up short, but a big piece of that is self care. So the people not in the arena who see you doing this work. How are they caring for you? How are you caring for yourself? Hey, Rod, I know we lose you. We have just a few minutes to do this blitz round, it's five quick questions. You'll have great answers to these. So imagine a young entrepreneur, someone like yourself 20 years younger, who's setting on requiere to change the world. Your advice to them in the following five areas. We're gonna go really fast. Number one, what is the book that you would recommend to a young entrepreneur?
Rod Nunn 40:00
You know, I give them the book I just talked about leadership on the one book
Evan Baehr 40:03
leaves my line. Love it. Okay, number one leadership on the line. Great. Number two, a podcast. Other than this one, of course, but something that listen to a podcast that you might recommend.
Rod Nunn 40:14
Oh, gosh, there's so many good ones out there. Oh, you stopped me with that whenever there's some really good DNI podcasts and I'm into now. You're gonna have to, um, I have to pass on that one.
Evan Baehr 40:27
Okay, okay, here we go. Three more. Number three, a movie, a movie to be wise movie to watch.
Rod Nunn 40:34
Just Mercy. Oh, good.
Evan Baehr 40:37
Number four a skill to learn can be practical theoretical, a skill to learn.
Rod Nunn 40:42
I this is a good one, I would say that practice of reflexivity. I'm going to define it for you really quick, please. So the ability to just sort of after the day is over, you know, to go back and just sort of play play your day back like a movie and think about, you know, what happened and your meetings and you carry the personal brand that you want to carry and how you might treat it differently. But also in the moment, being able to get into the balcony and look and look around, see what's happening, get back on the dance floor. You know,
Evan Baehr 41:11
bring us up number five, reflect the lease to go visit. They might learn to appreciate a place to visit.
Rod Nunn 41:16
Yeah, I would say go to places like concordance and get a tour or like the Harlem Children's Zone in New York, like places that have really, really innovated and brought these sort of desperate functions to disparate functions together in new ways to create innovation that's actually helping people who we thought didn't have a chance.
Evan Baehr 41:40
That is the perfect final word on this. That is the spirit of concordance. It's interdisciplinary, it's entrepreneurial. It's driving human flourishing. People, including yourself rod are at the forefront of that. Thanks for taking time with us. Thanks for the amazing work of concordance 1000s 10s, hundreds of 1000 people have been blessed and equipped and are flourishing because of the work that you guys do. Thanks for spending time with us. ROD I look forward to a part two.
Rod Nunn 42:02
Absolutely. Thank you, Evan.
Evan Baehr 42:09
Thanks for tuning in to venture to flourish. If you know someone who should be listening to the pod, would you do me a favor and just send them a link and check out the site learn.vc/flourish. There, you can subscribe to our newsletter, read transcripts, find related articles and even upcoming events and hate on a personal note. I'm really glad you're here. There are a lot of parts of my own life where I feel like I'm languishing. So I love your interest in the topic and look forward to figuring out what we can achieve together. Signing off, it's Evan Baer from venture to flourish.