Bernard Hampton
speaker
129 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Bernard Hampton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
Because your goal would be, if you did that well, if you weren't just pulling from them, but you also poured into it, ideally, you'd turn it into a sponsor relationship. So I've made those mistakes in the past. I had to pivot as well. And I share that from just lessons learned.
And then the ones that turned into sponsors, because there's a level of trust and transparency, a couple of things happened. Number one, that person will tell you when you have broccoli in your teeth. They'll put the mirror up. They'll tell you the truth when you don't need to hear it. And I can't tell you how invaluable that's been. And I'm not pretending that that's always going to feel good.
But we accept it because you grow to know that that's coming from a great place, from somebody that only wants to see you do well, be at your very best. And so that connection is always important. Sometimes mentors can be given. Nobody can give you a sponsor. Somebody can assign you a mentor. Your relationship and the way that you help that unfold will determine if it becomes a sponsor or not.
Sometimes they come through programs. I always encourage people as I've been on my journey over a career is to seek them on your own, to think about everybody you meet. By the way, I've got peers that are phenomenal mentors and sponsors today because of investing in and fostering relationships. We do great work together, but we also support the growth and development of one another.
The other place that I think gets thought of least sometimes is I highly encourage you're not cheating on your company. I encourage people to also seek and develop outside relationships that become sponsors and mentors. Because to your point, fresh perspective matters. At the end of the day, leadership is leadership.
You want people that are going to be thought, intelligent, engaging, not listen to a company's secret process, but be able to help you about strategies. We've all got different experiences. And so we're going to come at things differently and provide you advice today that breaks the mold maybe out of whether it be cultural that you're in or because you've always done it that way.
That perspective can be a catalyst for change in different ways.
Culture is important and we've been on this journey for quite some time and that's why I have just so much credit to the folks that I work with and their willingness to be able to do things different. Many of them came from within the business, by the way, and so they bring a level of subject matter expertise, they learn learning and our tools and resources.
But the way that we think about this culture of learning, if you will, is to one, be party to create an environment where continual learning is celebrated. In order for that to happen, learning needs to be interesting, it needs to be democratized. We tend to bring forward the use of various modalities, including great new technology like virtual reality and AI into it.
We create environments of training that leads people into real life skill development. It has to solve a problem, solve a challenge somebody's going through. They need to feel enabled and empowered to perform their roles at a higher level when they're done. And it needs to be supportive. And one example of doing that is we use AI in something that we call iCoach.
where literally 1.3 million times last year, employees across our company engaged in immersive learning where they can use tools that would provide them feedback on either areas they were struggling with and they decide to self-driven go in, or one, a leader encourage them to be able to go in and get feedback and practice whatever the scenarios are that they're struggling with.
And they may get feedback from, in this case, a computer. but it allows them to feel enabled, empowered, and now my leader is not catching me in the act of doing something poorly. Now I'm showing off a little bit because they see me being successful with it. These tools and resources allow them to do that. The other opportunity, my colleagues in our global talent organization,
went through a process and identified the 200 skills around the company that are significantly important because they're either functional skills or they're managerial skills applied to all roles across the company. My organization built and launched last year, the Bank of America Skills Library, which gives them access to those skills.
And importantly, they're connected to something that we call the career path tool, where someone can go in and say, hey, you know what, I'm in this role today. I would like to do this as an individual producer, or I'd like to pursue a leadership track.
They can see the skills required in those roles, and they can see all of the tools and resources available to give them access to not wait, but begin to develop those skills today. And so that ability to say we're one company that has many careers and I have control as an individual employee, regardless of my level, regardless of what I do today, I have access to that.
So, yes, I've got great leaders I can work with, but I can also demonstrate some personal ownership by being able to engage in these tools and continue to learn today.
Yeah, and if they don't exist in your company today, I think we're fortunate at Bank of America, but if they didn't exist in your company today, there's resources like your academy, the LEAP Academy online. There's so many, there's books that you can read. There's just lots of sources of information. There's people that you can observe.
Sometimes that's about what to do as much as what not to do in key situations. But the bottom line is, what are you doing to learn something new? And then how are you, not just learning, because you can get in a continual vacuum of learning, but if you never, apply it, then what happens at the end of the day?
That's part of balance for me in my life. And I'm so pleased that it's reflected in my children and the way that they volunteer today as a priority. In fact, they go to food distributions and all sorts of activities with me as well, but they also do them on their own. That's part of personal fulfillment.
Like I said, I grew up with modest beginnings and the Urban Leader I've been attracted to as an organization because it focuses on helping people from all walks of life be able to achieve economic empowerment. And the power to get great advice, to have tools and resources, receive coaching, can literally change somebody's life and their families for generations.
Showing 81–100 of 129 · page 5 of 7
← Previous
Next →