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Building Organizations Where Everyone Thrives · Humanity Working

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then my wife tells me, What's wrong?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, This is ridiculous.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: I can't put this down.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like Hi everyone.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, Paul's talking to Minno Bopaya.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Minel is the author of Equity, How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: This book won the 2022 Terry McAdam Book Award as the book most likely to change the way nonprofit professionals work.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But concepts in the book extend way beyond the world of nonprofits.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Minnow has been featured on NPR on South by Southwest.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But we are really excited to get her on the podcast because of the truly unique insight she brings into the topic of equity.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great discussion that I think might challenge how you think about the topic, even if, perhaps especially if, you think you have nothing left to learn here.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is brought to you by Billion Minds.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Billion Minds helps companies be ready for the future of work by developing adaptable, resilient employees.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn more about them on LinkedIn or by visiting billionminds.com.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you like this episode, please like and review us on your podcast app.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, let's get into it.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: So welcome to the podcast.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much, Paul.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Alright, let me give you my four-word review of this book.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's four.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: Please.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody must read this.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like I read a lot of books in this part of my job.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: And um and like most books, particularly like books that are, you know, business style books or kind of talking about organizations' work, almost all of them have some really kind of interesting points to uh to pick up on.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: But I would say the difference for me with this one was that I I was literally finding it unput downable, in part because of the stories and how you're telling the stories, but a lot because I found myself questioning what I thought I knew personally and many of the behaviors that I that I know are kind of have been historically kind of embedded in me.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_04: So so really, really congratulations on this thing and and thanks for sending my way.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_04: How have how have things been so far?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_05: With the uh great.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, yeah, with the launch.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's um I yeah, I don't know what what point you don't say you're launching, uh, but it's been a while.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're launching.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but it's it's been really well received.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think because I'm a first-time author, um, and because I I say what I believe, not what's the most marketable thing, maybe.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um it's like it's I feel like it's been like a sleeper hit, right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_05: Because it's not like the the thing that's the most trending topic, but it's like a long tale.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_05: I think people are discovering it and really starting to feel not just that it's a good book, but that it's a good manual that they cut keep coming back to, particularly people who are doing DEI in organizations.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna throw you for a loop here a little bit.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: Do you have a copy of your book to hand?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I do.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_04: So sorry about this.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_04: I should have I should have warned you and I did and I didn't.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um your the the last part of your book, literally the the closing thoughts, uh um which is on page 120, if I can help you with that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_04: Can I I would I know it's a little bit long, but would you be okay with with reading that?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_05: The whole thing?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_05: That's what you want.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um equity is a big ask.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: It requires us to examine our fundamental assumptions about the world.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_05: It requires us to think hard about the role of systems and structures in our lives, our communities, and our society, and to find a way to make the visible, the invisible visible.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_05: Mostly, it requires us to dig deep into our internal desire for fairness and summon the courage to do hard things like redesign entire organizations.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_05: But equity gives more than it takes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_05: When we meet it with bravery and humility, equity gives us innovation and opportunity.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_05: It helps us make everyone's life a little bit better.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_05: It can save babies in India, allow girls and boys to see themselves as they never have through media, enable people with disabilities to access the informational power of the internet, help launch new businesses, and ensure that no one's life is determined by their differences.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: My hope is that this book has opened a door in your mind, a new way of seeing how we can design our organizations and why equity is so critical to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility, or idea, innovation, and the future of work.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_05: In showing you this possibility, I also hope you leave with some concrete tools you can use to start designing for more equity in the corner of the world where you have influence and power.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_05: If we all simply did that, we would become drops in a tsunami of justice.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, everything in the human-made world was designed or invented by someone no greater than you.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: From words to companies, we all make life up as one collective choose your own adventure tale.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_05: We are all designers of our shared destiny.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_05: No one among us, no matter how marginalized, is unable to make a difference in the lives of the rest of us.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_05: We may not see the effects right away, but we all have the power to create a more just and equitable world because creativity is our birthright as humans.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_05: When we create more equity and justice, we fulfill a very deep human need.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_05: So don't delay.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_05: Start designing a more equitable world today, however big or small your efforts may be.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_05: It is the only way to know the true depths of your humanity.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_04: And when I read that, I went, Whew.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_04: Which is why I want it, which is why I wanted you to uh read it for me.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: I apologize for like throwing throwing you for a loop there, but thank you, thank you so much for reading that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_04: And the reason that I wanted you to is because even though it's the closing thoughts and it sums up so much the themes um that are in the book, it's also a great way of kind of opening the discussion, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: Because there's so much in there that speaks to why this number one, why this is a a big deal.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_04: Number two, um, that it is within all of our compasses to to do something to have an to to have an impact on it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um and I think also number three, sort of the way in which you frame it, it certainly for me at least kind of reframes my my thinking about these areas and how they uh how they interact together.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: So I want to um I want to start with terms.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um and I think for people that are like deeply in this field, it's gonna uh um they're obviously already gonna intuit this and know this.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um but not every not everybody is as deeply into it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so specifically I want to talk about equity versus equality.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: In the book, uh if people get a physical copy of the book, they'll see a picture that basically tells you immediately.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: But can you um which is for those people that are on the video, it's this picture here.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um but for those, uh for those that are listening to the audio version of theirs, can you can you talk to what the difference is there, why both are important, but why they achieve different goals?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_05: So um equality is basically when everybody gets the same thing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_05: And equity is when people get what they need according to their differences, whether those are innate differences or circumstantial differences.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_05: So the way to sort of visualize this, if you're listening along, is if you have two people and you give them both a bicycle, but one person uses a wheelchair, that bicycle is you've given them equal things, but it is fundamentally useless to the person in a wheelchair.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: What a person in a wheelchair needs is either a motorized is one, a motorized wheelchair and like sidewalk cutouts that allow them to like progress from the sidewalk to the street to another sidewalk, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: So we understand, you know, in in that instance that the same thing is not fair, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so equity refuses to fall, and this is what I love about the disability justice movement.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_05: The disability justice movement said individuals are not at fault if they can't access buildings or services.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_05: It is the fault of society to design for differences because we are all innately different anyway, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_05: That there is nothing wrong with me, that it is this this has been designed to keep me out, right?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_05: So that's really important because so much of how our society has been designed has been on this like false belief of a bell curve and Stepford wives, and like that we should all be in these nuclear families with two parents and two kids and a dog, and like, you know, and that is not most people's reality, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um that being said, I am also very careful to say that equality is that doesn't mean we just throw out equality.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: There are times when equal solutions are more just.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_05: And the example I often give is marriage equality.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_05: So in the late 90s and early 2000s, there were various legal maneuvers being made to protect same-sex relationships.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_05: Some states were advocating for marriage equality, some were advocating for civil unions.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: But then the LGBTQ uh community got together and they realized that they had to push for marriage equality because if they pushed for civil unions, they would create a legal precedent for separate and eventually separate and unequal, which the Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_05: And so what I often say is that equity and equality are opposite sides of the same coin of justice, and that you need equitable structures to have equal human rights and equal access to opportunity.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_05: And so they go hand in hand.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: They are not either, they are not, I might have used the word verses, but I but my thinking has refined, and I it's more of an ampersand between them than uh verses, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_05: That it's equity and equality get us to a just and fair society.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_04: Excellent explanation.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so equity is part of a larger picture for, and if anybody, a lot of our listeners are in uh people operations or HR, et cetera, and so they'll be very familiar with terms like DEI, DIB.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: And we've looked at some of those, uh, some of those in some detail in recent episodes of this pod.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_04: I know you're more concerned with how this is implemented than the specific names associated with it, but you're using an acronym called um IDEA.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah um can you explain what that is and why you chose that specifically?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_05: So it stands for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so I am passionate about always including accessibility in uh DEI work.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I think if there is anything that is more entrenched in our societies than racism, I think it it's ableism.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um and the reason I say that is that we can fundamentally agree at this point in time that you should not incarcerate or imprison someone because of the color of their skin.
• 12:21
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: We cannot always agree that you should not incarcerate or imprison someone because of a disability or a mental health diagnosis.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_05: We're still willing to engage in that form of oppression without a full understanding of those experiences.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_05: And we stigmatize and criminalize people with disabilities, particularly mental health disabilities, than we do any other population.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'm very passionate about always including accessibility in our work.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_05: That being said, and the acronym IDEA came from um my mentor, Jeanetta Betchkol, who um is my elder and I listen to her and do what she says.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: She's the one person who can tell me what to do and I will do it.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, it's also being used by a lot of Gen Z and millennial professionals in the space.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: There's a wonderful nonprofit called IDEAS Generation, which uh where the idea stands for inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, and they've added social justice as well.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but that being said, Breveni and Wit, we stay on our the company that I founded, we say on our site that we are acronym agnostic.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um it's, you know, and I think this is sort of my Hindu upbringing.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, you know, like there's an expression in Hinduism that truth is one, uh not truth is truth is one, and sages call it by very various names.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_05: That like I'm not gonna sit here and argue over acronyms.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_05: I am, no matter what acronym you use, I am gonna have a mind towards bringing disability justice into the work.
• 13:48
  unknown: Right.
• 13:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think there's an interesting link also when you bring accessibility into this, and it'll lead us on to some of the other topics that you're talking about.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um I know from my uh from my background at at Microsoft as well, when there was a significant movement inside the company to im improve Microsoft's overall um story around accessibility.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it became something where it became deeply connected in terms of um the uh things that were offered from a product perspective and the people that were being hired into the organization.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_04: And you could start to see a direct link between bringing people in that had um the that were frankly different, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh would be the uh the way to uh to describe it, but the but were people that would actually take advantage of these accessibility parts of of the applications.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: The improvement in the design of those and then hiring those people into the uh hiring those people into the organization.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry myself in terms of uh in terms of several groups that that I could work for.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um and of course we are surrounded by things that are um that are useful to society as a whole, but that began as being solutions for uh for particular people, the text messages being obviously being a good example.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_04: Ramps on sidewalks are kind of universally useful, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um so they're not just for wheelchairs.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know anybody who doesn't appreciate a ramp on a sidewalk, you know.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a um and so you start to think about the world in a different way when you start to think about it through um through these different lenses.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: And so for that reason, I think it it ties in really well to uh the other thing that you almost uniquely bring into this book, which is the role of design thinking.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so you're you're coming on our pod at an interesting uh an interesting time, Minal, because we've we just did an uh an episode about design thinking.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: And then before that, we just did a uh we just did an episode about DEI and DIB.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_04: So so you kind of being at the at the intersection of those two things is uh is really interesting.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um your company uses human-centered design as part of your overall approach.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: But your section on the design approach to idea, you talk about the embrace infant warner at Warmer.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I did not know that story.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: It did not end up where I expected.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_04: So tell us about it and kind of the lessons that we can learn from it.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: So this is, I mean, it is a bit of a darling of the story of the human-centered design world.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um and it um, and I primarily know about it through my friend Rajan Patel, who founded an organization called Dent in Baltimore that teaches design thinking to Baltimore high school students.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_05: But he is Rajan was first a student at Stanford, and Stanford has a design school called the D School.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and um they often get nonprofits to sort of pitch like problems that the students can solve through human-centered design, also known as design thinking, right?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so Rajan and his classmates worked with uh um trying to address the uh premature births in India and the you know really high death rates of premature babies, mainly from hypothermia.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_05: When babies are born premature, they're often, they're often very low weight, don't have enough body fat, and can often die just from being cold.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so they use the design thinking approach, which starts with empathy and really interviewing the the people who are experiencing, the people who have a lived experience of this as to what's happening.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_05: And that doesn't mean just, you know, mothers and babies, but nurses, doctors, you know, mother-in-laws in India play a big role in this sort of in the birth of a child, right?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_05: So they interviewed them.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_05: And um what they found is so, you know, first of all, most people in India don't give birth in a hospital.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_05: They'll give birth at home or at a rural clinic.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: Even if they can make it to a hospital, um these, you know, a lot of uh Western born, what's called NRIs, non-resident Indians like myself, would be shipping incubators to these hospitals and they would lay there like gathering dust because one, the electricity grid can be unreliable in India.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_05: Monsoons can knock out your power.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_05: But two, more often the nurses were like, I don't know how to work this thing, and I'm afraid I'm gonna harm the baby putting them in an incubator.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: But three, and this is the most insightful um thing that they found.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: When the mothers like they wouldn't have enough incubators for all the babies who were premature, and whoever got the like lotto ticket to have their baby in, that mother would be more stressed and fearful than the other mothers.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_05: And that's because her baby's away from her in a machine she doesn't understand hours after birth when you're supposed to be bonding like skin to skin, right?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_05: So Rajan and his classmates, you know, went through a very long process.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_05: They started a nonprofit to launch this product and um basically created a the embrace warmer, which is like a swaddle unit with this wax pack that gets heated up that you put in the back that stays an ideal 37 degrees Celsius, which is what's needed to keep a baby warm.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_05: And the mother or parent or family members can hold the baby while they're being warmed.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: And this device at the time of me writing the book has saved about 300,000 babies' lives.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: But more interestingly, since then, there's even a movement to bring the device to the US and to developed countries.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_05: And so I love that story because it illustrates a number of things.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_05: One, um, having worked in nonprofits, I could see how a very well-intentioned but um a well-intentioned nonprofit that was sort of baked in white saviorism would feel outrage over babies dying and be like, we need to bring them up to our standard of care and get them incubators.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_05: And then we need to have a private sector approach to building out the power grid so that there's reliable power at all the hospitals all the time.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_05: And that is pretty much putting a Western frame on a solution to a development to an Indian problem, right?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_05: And not honoring both the lived experience and the unique um geography and you know ecology of a country, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I think the the sh the the solution, the story shows what happens if you're willing to let go of white privilege and think and genuinely ask somebody about how they're experiencing the world.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um but then the fact that they're trying to bring it to the US also shows, and and this is where the accessibility comes in too, it also shows that when we create inventions that center the people who have been most marginalized, often those innovations can are are useful to the people who have been historically centered as well.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: So it becomes a win-win by centering people who have been pushed to the margins the most.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's there there is so much behind there.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: And there's almost that there's an assumption that where this starts, if you're like we gotta get these incubators into India, that that by definition it's better, right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: As in by defin like like there's the there's the there's the real version and then there's this version that will uh the That has got a bunch of compromises because I don't know, they're not as clever as we are, or they're not as uh or developed.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: Developed as we are, and all that kind of stuff, versus thinking about what it really means to create something that people need out of uh that it's a fundamental human need, right?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: How do you serve a fundamental human need really well?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_04: And it may well be that for a whole bunch of reasons that are baked in history, that we've decided to solve this in a particular way and at a certain point innovated and innovated on that original piece of technology, and in doing so lost sight of what those what some of those uh original needs are.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_04: And then within that, you start to talk about what is a key tenant of of design thinking, which is empathy, and how we kind of get empathy wrong, or a lot of us get empathy wrong.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: Can you talk about that a little bit?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so um, so in addition to design thinking, my firm, we incorporate behavioral science into our work.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_05: And so when you look at behavioral science, what they show is that if when people believe in perspective taking, that they can be in somebody else's shoes, often what that tends to trigger is our natural biases towards egotism and stereotyping.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: We we tend to think we know, but we don't know.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_05: We haven't had that lived experience.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_05: So we just engage in like media representations of what we think poor people are like, or what we think people of color are like, or what we think women are like, or what we think non-binary and trans people are like, right?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_05: Like we don't actually have those experiences.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_05: And so we tend to engage in stereotyping, however well-meaning we still do, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so um Nicholas Eli suggested that instead of perspective taking, we engage in something that I call perspective gathering.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: And that is really asking and listening to the stories of people who are most affected by the problem you are trying to solve.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_05: So in the case of Rajan, it was listening to mothers and nurses and doctors and mother-in-laws and family members, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um uh, you know, there's also a story in the book of like when don't during the Obama administration, when don't ask, don't tell was up for like debate.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I can't I can't remember the numbers now, but over a thousand Pentagon, like retired military professionals, wrote a letter saying it would be catastrophic to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_05: It would reduce morale.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_05: And these are people who had years of experience, quote unquote, you know, decades, if not centuries, if you added them all up, of experience, um, but did not have the lived experience of either being gay necessarily or working side by side with someone that they knew at that moment in time.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_04: And if I can just interject that, because I looked into this a little bit myself.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, as far as I I can see looking into that, you might the assumption might be all that came from a position of prejudice, of like open prejudice, but it appears not to be the case.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: It appears to be that this was the the sole concern here was around um the efficacy and the dynamics of of the units, you know.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_04: So it came out of like yeah, yeah, like I don't think it was prejudice.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_05: It came out of like how do we protect the unit in everybody's interests?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_05: Like, how do we do the greatest good for the most many of people, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_05: It was well intentioned.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_05: The Pentagon, however, was like, let's go actually ask active servicemen.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_05: And they asked like tens of thousands of active servicemen and their spouses.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_05: And most of them said, one, they already knew somebody who was gay and serving.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: Two, and then like 92% said that they didn't think that it would affect morale at all.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_05: And if anything, it would improve morale because people could people could finally be honest about things.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_05: And so like to the point that Donald Rumsfeld, who was like, who like, was it Donald Trumsfeld?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: I might have the name wrong, but whoever was acting secretary, like was like, this is a non-event.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like repealing this is a non-event, like it's not gonna have this outsize impact that we think.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_05: And we've asked, like, it was something like 50,000 people.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_05: Some I'm really bad with numbers and scales, but we don't like mean as much.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: But it was like on the order of magnitude of 10 of like all of these retired professionals, right?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's the power of perspective taking is that you actually get more accurate data about the impact of a decision or the impact of a solution to a problem than you do if you think that you can your your powers of empathy are so great that you can possibly understand all the impacts when you've never lived that sort of life.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was one of the areas that for me was a little bit mind-blowing because I hadn't really thought about that.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you think of of that idea of walking a mile in somebody's shoes as almost being like an act of I don't know, humility.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_04: I want to call it that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_04: But in reality, but uh, but and and so it is, you know, generally well-meaning, but there is a certain egocentricity to it, which is based on this assumption that you're really capable of doing that.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um and and so that I I've I've been thinking about that quite a lot because um, so my just so you know a little bit about uh about me, our audience will uh will a little bit.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_04: But I so I grew up in Oxford, England.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so uh which means a bunch of things.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you spent any time in Oxford, but but obviously very uh very high educational level.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but then also lots of multicultural uh multiculturality, I guess you could call it.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, because people are 200 plus countries, I think, are represented by students, University of Oxford.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so that you I mean you should never, I don't think you should ever call out a meritocracy, but that kind of, you know, um at least people coming in from different um uh from different races and genders and all that kind of stuff.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um then lived in London um and lived in a variety of different parts of London, which itself is a um, you know, a hot bottom uh hot bed of of different cultures.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_04: Then moved to Seattle, Washington, tech hub, so much the same, much same kind of thing.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_04: And today I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_04: And and I've been here for like a couple of years.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um but I've been really thinking about this a great deal, especially as you get to your um the section where you're kind of talking about this the group identity wheel, which I know is not your invention, but it's useful to have in there.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_04: And you start, I start positioning myself on there and thinking about, okay, well, I'm definitely historically centered on education and gender identity and culture ethnicity.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a little bit off on religion, but you know, but as I go through this, I'm pretty much centered on almost on almost everything.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_04: And here I am living in a community which, if you know anything about the Tulsa race massacre, is is very uh historically marginalized.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: And if anybody last night I saw Killers of the Flower, uh, Killers of the Flower Moon, and which of course is also in and around Tulsa.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm surrounded by um groups of people that have been uh particularly historically marginalized.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_04: So this got me thinking.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and in particular, what it's got me thinking about is what is the what is the best way, the most effective way to listen to those voices when walking around in their shoes isn't working.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: I know you've touched on aspects of this already, but what do you like what advice would you have for me as somebody who wants to actually understand that world in which I live a little better?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I talk a lot, I talk a bit in the book about there's three different types of empathy.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_05: There's emotional empathy, which is what we usually think about, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_05: Like your ability to feel what somebody's feeling.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's cognitive empathy, which is your ability to understand a situation.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_05: And it's often used by like doctors and paramedics so that you may not be emoting, but you are cognitively there and trying to figure out what a solution will be, right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_05: And then there's empathic concern, which is somebody's ability to really read a room or a person and know what they need.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_05: And my mentor, uh Dr.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_05: Cole, is phenomenal at that.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I tend to rely very heavily on cognitive empathy.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's possibly because I was raised by doctors and my husband's also a firefighter and paramedic, so I'm kind of surrounded by it.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_05: But um, but I feel like it gives you a little bit of the distance.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_05: But in cognitive empathy, if I'm willing to be humble enough to say, or at least be willing to take my ego out, like I don't have to feel what they're feeling.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_05: The most compassionate thing I can do is when somebody tells you their story, just believe them.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_05: Just believe them that that's what the experience was like for for them.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_05: You know?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I think we we do a lot of what if, and if I were in your shoes, I would have done this.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_05: But and you know, if it's a friend and you're brainstorming solutions, that's fine.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_05: But when somebody's really telling you about their trauma or what their experience was like, you have to believe that it's happened.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: And I've seen this time and again before George Floyd was murdered.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: I remember talking with a lot of people of color about how we would try to tell white people about experiences of racism, and they'd be like, Well, no, maybe they were just being rude to you because of how you were addressed.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_05: Or maybe they, you know, it was because like they were having a bad day, or they didn't understand what you and it was, and I was like, we we knew in our guts what it was.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_05: We knew it viscerally, the way it I the way I explain it, it's you know, it's the way like a woman knows a guy's a creep.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like we just know it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_05: Like, you know, like we have antenna for it and we know it.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_05: And if, you know, if your daughter or your wife were to come to you, and I'm assuming you may not be married, I don't know what the situation is, but if if one's daughter or wife or sister were to come to them and be like, that guy creeped me out, most of us would believe her, right?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, even right, but like when a person of color, when your friend comes to you and be like, that person was racist, we get super defensive on like all the other reasons they could have been.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_05: And the the most compassionate thing you can do is to honor that person's own like lived experience and um and their own intuition around something.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_05: Now, that being said, you know, feelings are valid, they are not always factual, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_05: And there could be other interpretations, but that's not the point.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_05: Like you're per this person is coming to you with their pain.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_05: And and I often talk about when I talk to people of color who want to do diversity, equity, inclusion work, I was like, when you're sharing a story, get really clear on whether you're sharing it to be healed or you're sharing it to educate people of a different identity.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_05: Because when you are looking to be healed, what you need are other people who can hold your story without question.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_05: But when people are looking to get educated, the process of education often involves asking questions.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_05: And so if you don't want your your story questioned, don't share it with people.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_05: If you don't want your story questioned, you are looking to get healed.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_05: And that means you shouldn't share it with people who haven't had that same lived experience yet, right?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_05: Because they don't have that ability often unless they are a trusted friend who you know can hold it without question.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_05: And so I think we have there are what I mean to say is this is like if you really want to be empathetic, um you have to be curious about their emotional experience, not the facts of the story.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_05: And there are times to be emotionally curious, and then there are times to be curious about the facts of a story that that maybe doesn't have to do with your friend, right?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_05: That we can have both of those conversations, but they don't all they they can't happen at the same time, right?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_05: So like know which conversation you're having, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_05: Are you curious about the history of like racism in Tulsa and race riots and things like that, and you want to go find out the facts about that?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_05: Cool, there's plenty of books and resources around that.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_05: And and there are books and resources that can play, you know, that can be like, oh, you know, you might think it's this, but here's actually why it's not, or here's why, you know, like immigration law played into it, or housing law is paid played into it, right?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: And and can give you all those things.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_05: But when a human being is sharing their story, that's not the time to be like, well, what was the housing law like at the time, you know, like right?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like, so I I think it's about having this emotional maturity of really honoring people's experiences and lived identities and and empathizing with them for what they are, um, and not trying to prove them true or false.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you've just you you just brought back a thought, um a memory, actually, for me.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_04: So I when I was 17 years old, my best friend at school, and we went to a store, it's closed now, so I can say what what it was is Woolworths.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and so we uh and so we went there together, and um and and by the way, like other aspects, because you're like, oh, it might be how you're dressed or whatever.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_04: So my friend was always like he was he dressed sharp.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_04: I did not.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so we walked, but anyway, we walked into the store and there was this um this uh what they call pick and mix.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if they call it that here in America, I can't remember, but you know, where you go like get your candy and stuff like that and fill up back.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_04: So we so we got that as we walked out the store together, together the whole time, security guard comes up to my friend and wants to know what he's got in his pockets.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_04: And the fascinating thing about that for me was that I considered myself like aware of all of the stuff that was going on.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_04: But that was the first, the first experience where I had behaved absolutely identically to this uh to this other human being, but this other human being was singled out.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: And there were two things that distressed me, like personally distressed me.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_04: One, the fact that it happened, two, the fact that my friend was like, Oh, don't worry, it happens all the time.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: So, as in his acceptance of what was like completely unjust was was an experience that, you know, what are we?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: I'm 52 and I remember that.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I'll never forget that.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: So that the point is that everything before that's theoretical at that moment because I'm so proximal to it.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_04: Now all of a sudden I've got some idea.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, I'm not experiencing the other 20 times it's happening, but I've got just some idea as to what that what that means.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_04: And you're right, it is different.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_04: It is a different form of it's a different form of understanding.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um and there's even a greater understanding, because what I think most people don't realize is like when those things start to happen like time and time again, it it's like Chinese water torture.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if that's that may not be a politically correct, but it's like water torture.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_05: But it's yeah, right?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's drip by drip by drip that erode, and it's like it, it is, and so people then explode when they're 40 over one thing.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_05: And people are like, why are you so angry over this one thing?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_05: It happens all the time.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, because it happens all the time, I'm angry, because I'm exhausted.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_05: I'm exhausted by the amount of resilience it's taken to not be bitter and angry about this, right?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: And and that is the part that I think people see one experience and they think they get it, but the actual trauma is in the accumulation, not in the one experience.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_05: You can write off one incident.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_05: The trauma and the oppression is in the accumulation of it.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_04: Gosh, so many places we could take this, but I want to go I want to focus on um something where I think there's probably a little bit of connection in terms of what our two organizations do.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_04: So we fo we focus ability and minds a lot on a tension that I personally call me versus we.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_04: And so the way that I the way that I think about me versus we is the balance that employees and in fact their companies need to have between meeting their own needs, making sure that their own needs are being met.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_04: And then the other thing, which is also important, particularly in team and organizational things, which is collaborating for the greater good.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: So how do you the that which is different in different cultures, for example.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_04: So some of the um some of the countries we work in, there is more cultural emphasis on the idea of what's the output of the team.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_04: You might reward teams in different ways than you reward uh versus rewarding individuals.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_04: So here in the US, we tend to reward a lot more individual behaviors.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: In certain other countries, they they might and certain other company cultures, they might put almost all the emphasis on the output of the uh of the team because they're really focused on improving team dynamics.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: So you discuss in the book, you bring it up several times, um, the concept of rugged individualism, which I think is a term some people will know, but some people won't.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um so can you introduce that term rugged individualism and discuss why you think it creates challenges um for how organizations work, particularly if they're looking to introduce equity?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_05: So um rugged individualism is this belief that we can all go it, that we can go it alone, that each man is an island, right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_05: That like, and often men, uh like, right?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_05: And so that the the con the the the opposite of rugged individualism is interdependence.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_05: It's not collectivism, right?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_05: And so it's interdependence, and interdependence is a fact, it is one of the few things that science and religion agree on, like scientific study.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: We live in a multivariable world.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_05: There is no like independent and dependent variables in like what we're dealing with, right?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um but but what it what's baked into interdependence is this um dance between um like autonomy and um the collective good, right?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_05: So at Brevity and Wit, our two main organizational values are sovereignty and interdependence.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_05: And and this is what I think this work is about is threading the needle that like diversity, equity, inclusion should allow for liberation, which means that doesn't mean you're free to do everything without consequence.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_05: It means that you have sovereignty, which means the right to rule yourself, to decide what is in your best interest, and to pursue it.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_05: But the the complementary value is interdependence, meaning that you acknowledge that your actions affect people around you and systems around you and things around you, right?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_05: None of us live in a bubble.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_05: Why rugged individualism is so toxic is because it's basically perpetuating this myth that we can live in a bubble and our and our actions don't affect others, right?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_05: And we saw this during the pandemic.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like if you choose not to get vaccinated or go around unmasked, you affect the health of other individuals.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_05: And so, and that being said, if you are, you know, if you are if you are deaf and hard of hearing and rely on reading lips to some extent in dealing with people, masking becomes really problematic, right?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_05: So that there is this constant interplay between sovereignty and interdependence, but sovereignty and the right to rule yourself is very different from rugged individualism and a false belief that you go it alone because nobody does, right?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: There are there are like the only you know, the classic story that makes me think about this is um Henry David Thoreau, who wrote Walden Pond.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and he writes all about this sort of idea of like self-reliance and like which, you know, in general is okay, but taken to the extreme is ridiculous.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: And what people don't know is that every Sunday his mother and sister used to come by with donuts.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so he has written a book that like there's no women in his writing, right?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_05: And this idea of self-reliance only exists when you erase women from the narrative.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_05: That like this, uh you know, like that the main way that that narrative has been perpetuated is by erasing women and the amount of emotional and cognitive labor they have done for free.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and so rugged individualism, you know, I don't mean to the the reason I say it's not collectivism is because sometimes people think that this is moving away from individualism to collectivism.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_05: But having sounds so much like a conflict between two political systems, you know, or two like cultures, and people and but coming from, you know, dis being a descendant of India, which is a much more collectivistic culture, it's not like there's not oppression in collectivistic cultures.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like the patriarchy is strong in India in ways that are really, really bad.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'm not of the belief that just being collectivistic is gonna be able to stop oppression.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_05: That the goal is to stop oppression, which means to give people the right to choose.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_05: But that all but part of that freedom also includes accountability to be held responsible for what you choose.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, to tie it back to sort of what we what we've been doing inside inside organizations on this, um, the reason that we we call this me versus we is is to kind of highlight the fact that there in many people's minds there is a tension between between those two things, right?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: So the the end goal of it is like me and we, as it were, but but it's framed in many ways for many people as in in that way.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_04: So for example, um conflict that you see every day inside organizations whereby people will be uh wanting to structure and frame their work in a very in a very, very individualistic way, with no thought as to whether you're pushing somebody else's project back or whether you're making or whether you're hoarding and hiding your work that other people can't use or any of that kind of stuff.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_04: And then your reason for it was, well, well, I'm just you know, I'm just being me, right?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just you know, I'm just I'm just self-optimizing and doing the best that I can do, keeping it real, you know, whatever it happens to be, right?
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_04: And so these things become um almost like embedded as, well, you know, that's how I measured, that's how I manage, that's how I that's that's what you would expect of me.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_04: And of course, the the ultimate outcome associated with that is in many cases teams of high performing individuals, but they are teams of high performing individuals, they are not high performing teams.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so ultimately, like where we need to get to, to your point, is a point where everybody's ability to thrive as an individual is there.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_04: But that there's also a recognition that in order for the team to do well and the organization to do well, that there is an interdependency aspect of this that needs to be addressed as well.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_04: And part of considering other people's needs is a selfless act, as well as the individual claiming it as a self-ish act.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_04: So to me, that I think it's one of the most fascinating things of this, uh, of this kind of kind of work and stuff that where as you highlight these embedded things like rugged individualism, it kind of illustrates the challenges and the of the backdrop in which we're trying to trying to do this type of work.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's that's I I call it like symbiosis.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_05: How can you know, like, how can your needs and the needs of the organization be met?
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_05: And and sometimes it comes down to compatibility, right?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like we need to like it's you know, I think sometimes think if people think of an organization, if they didn't fit in that they are unqualified, they're less worthy.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm like, it's I don't know.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_05: I I tend to, it's more like dating.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's like you're incompatible.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_05: What you need and what the other person needs are not like lining up, so you can't take it that personally.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_05: And the the best idea is to keep moving until you find a place that's like compatible with you.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I think that that's really I think if we could take away the worthiness judgment when people when people's needs are in conflict with the organization, it makes it easier to have an honest conversation about it.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, all right, last couple of questions here, because I know we're uh we're running up on time a little bit.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_04: I've got two more that I want to quickly address.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: So the first one is something that's kind of been bugging me a little bit.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because I say, like your book isn't wasn't wasn't just read the words, right?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_04: It like you created thoughts in me.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_04: So um mine is really the thing that I've been bugged by recently has been, I would say, the organizational change management piece of this.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um so we're living in a very interesting time, and I guess we probably have been for the last couple of hundred years.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but certain forms of discrimination, let's talk about that piece a little bit, um, are not just prevalent, but they're even socially acceptable in certain in some circles.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_04: And certainly if you take an international view, that changes uh, you know, what is socially acceptable changes fairly dramatically.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_04: Now, if you're in a big company, you've almost certainly got people that are strongly convicted with the idea that certain forms of equity are a personal challenge to them and that don't meet with their uh with their personal convictions.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_04: I think you touched a little bit on it before, but it's it's even more of a challenge with with like larger companies.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um so obviously convicted and clear leadership plays an important part of this in terms of describing what kind of a company you are.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um But I think about, I don't know, Disney, for example, comes up a lot right now in terms of what Disney is what what Disney is doing inside its inside its organization and then the and the environment in which that uh in which that all exists.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_04: But I'm curious about how you effectively communicate and change behaviors against the reality of that background, whereby certain things you're looking to do are things whereby the people in your organization, some of them at least, are deeply convicted that it threatens them personally or is something that they disagree with, um, and will even, you know, vote on the basis of that.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, I think this is where leadership has to um embrace its power and use it responsibly.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, I think, you know, organizations are not democracies.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_05: You, the staff are not going to vote out the CEO.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_05: So you, as a CEO, have the power to decide what the rules of the road are.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_05: And people can have their own private opinions.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_05: This work is not about propaganda and getting people to think one way.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_05: What it is about is behavior and culture change, which means how do we act in public with one another or in the privacy of our organization, right?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_05: And so I think if whatever people's thoughts are, what we focus on is what is the observable behaviors of this work.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_05: You know, so like I give an example, you know, my husband's a firefighter.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_05: Talk about a crowd that's like resistance to change, right?
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_05: And they might have lots of different opinions about trans individuals and what they think about whether it's right or moral, whatever, right?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_05: It doesn't matter because they know that their standard of professionalism when they're on a call is to ask someone what their pronouns are and use them.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_05: I don't care what you think.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_05: Your thoughts are irrelevant to you doing your job.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_05: That is the standard of professionalism that they are expected to.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_05: Now, there may be a lot of talk in the firehouse that's, you know, transphobic, that I wouldn't want to be around, that would make it difficult for somebody who was trans to be a firefighter in the firehouse.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_05: And that stuff needs to be addressed too.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_05: But you start at the most basic level of like, what is the observable behavior?
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_05: And even if that stuff is true, then the rules become you are not allowed to say things that make anybody feel like to imply that somebody is a lesser human being for being different.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_05: That's also the rules of like an organization, right?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and and this is why I think like this language sometimes about authentic self can get easily weaponized.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_05: Because I mean, listen, I really like I'm very authentic.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_05: I like other people who are, but if your authentic self is an alt-right troll, you don't need to bring that to work.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_05: Don't bring your authentic self to work.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's not welcome here.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: That like, and so I think you set a culture by saying, here are the observable behaviors.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_05: And that's even Brene Brown says like values without observable behaviors are BS.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_05: So when you say you value inclusion and equity, you need to state what are the observable behaviors of inclusion and equity that you are asking people to engage in.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_05: Like when brevity and wit, we say our values are sovereignty and interdependence.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_05: We have very clear observable behaviors of what that means when you're working on projects.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_05: So, like you gotta translate your values into observable behaviors.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_05: You gotta speak in specifics instead of speaking in ideals in order to move people along.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_04: Makes sense.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_04: You said companies are not democracies.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_04: I'd probably add companies are not Twitter or X.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_05: They're not.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, they're not the worst place ever, but the that doesn't mean that they can't become more inclusive and democratic.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_05: But the way power is structured is different.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_05: And so good DEI practitioners understand that grassroots movements in in companies are not going to be effective the way they are in society.
• 53:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_05: And they have you have to change your model of intervention.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I think right now there's also a lot of backlash because there's been some shoddy DEI work by people who don't understand organizational development and how power works in organizations.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I completely concur with that.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_04: All right, last question.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um I would imagine, even though times this work can be very rewarding, I would imagine other times it might be a bit dispiriting.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's certainly not like a straightforward path towards progress.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_04: So what what drives you on?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_04: What's your and possibly more importantly, what's your dream future state for society, for a society as a whole as a result of this work?
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_05: Oh um so so okay, so here's where I'm gonna get very Hindu and Buddhist in you on you and say that I actually don't I don't really have that, or if I do, I don't nurture it or encourage it.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think that's really dangerous.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um and like I think if you are attached to the goal of this work, you will not last.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_05: You gotta love the process.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_05: Like you like when I entered into DI, I was like, oh, this is the thing I could do that I wouldn't get tired of talking about.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_05: And I just I want to talk about this for the rest of my life and do this work, knowing full well that there are forces working against me.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um and yet, you know, like we are, you know, in Buddhism they have this analogy that we are all nodes in a cosmic net.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_05: And your responsibility is the integrity of your node and the quality of your connections to the other nodes.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_05: You're not responsible for the net.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_05: And there is a level of egotism and saviorism if you think that your vision of the world you can implant on everybody else.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_05: You can't.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: My job is to do what lights me up as well as I can with integrity, right?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_05: And then I have to be somewhat detached from the results, but also know that we're working on much longer timelines.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_05: And the story I often tell is of my mentor, Jeanetta Cole.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, she was the first African-American woman president of Spelman in 1987.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_05: And um, she was very good friends with Audrey Lorde.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_05: And so she was very like gay friendly back in the 80s when a lot of um people were not, particularly people who are part of the black community, um, because of the black church.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_05: And so when Spellman, um, there was a lesbian association that got up during a talk and said, you know, we're not getting recognized, and she's like, without talking to anybody, she's like, I'm telling you right now as president of this college, I recognize you.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_05: And then there was a swift backlash from parents who, because Spellman is rooted in the black church, and the black church was very homophobic.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_05: And she talks about how that made her, or used to be very, or maybe still is, it depends which church, but she talks about how she learned in that moment how one can be both victim and victimizer, right?
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_05: But the story doesn't end there because 30 years later, um Spellman was the second HBCU to admit transgender students, and the first was Bennett College, where she had also served as president.
• 56:50
  unknown: Wow.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_05: And so these are the timelines that we're working on.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_05: This work is fundamentally about planting seeds for trees you will not sit under.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_05: And you gotta love the planting.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like it is like farm, like you gotta just love planting and hope that some people will like take up the baton and can to continue to steward your work after you're gone.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_05: You gotta be that detached from it and you gotta love it like that.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I love what I do.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not doing this out of obligation or guilt.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_05: I do it because I love it, right?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_05: And well, who was it, Howard Thurman, who said like, don't ask what the world needs, ask what lights you up because what the world needs are people who are lit from within.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_05: So that's how you keep going is you find out what lights you from within and do that.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_05: And do it with a social justice lens, but do that.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, perfect, perfect spot to leave it for the second time in this podcast.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the uh uh there's the uh there's the book again, um, Equity, How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_04: And um I kind of alluded to it before when I said everybody needs to read this.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_04: Like anybody that is just interested in things, I know that sounds ridiculous, but but but that was the thing.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_04: I just found it so, so fascinating to read such a thoughtful treatise, uh treatise on how to on the on this area.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_04: Something I thought I knew a reasonable amount about, and then came out of it with that classic Dun and Kruger thing where I was like, oh no, I know a lot less about it than I thought I did.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_04: So it's so um just wonderful talking to you today, Minal.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate your time.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neal.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our interviewer is Paul Slater.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: Music is by Dolo Records.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, like, and recommend us to others.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us reach more people.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.