Diversity Goes To Work Podcast

Show Notes

• How Tara found her way from an MBA to DEI work
• What aspect of education and training help propel one into the DEI space
• What it means to have a global lens for DEI work
• How to learn all of the nuances of DEI work around the globe
• The importance of listening, learning, and asking questions
• How best to recover from a DEI mistake
• The difference between DEI compliance vs commitment
• How to establish coherent DEI global goals
• How to best implement meaningful social support provisions to geographically dispersed employees

Transcript

Tara Borchers

But you're not going to get everyone on board. And if that is your intent, you are probably setting yourself up for some sadness.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we get ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Today's guest, Tara Borchers, is one of our own and a graduate of our MBA program. She's had a multi-dimensional career since leaving Miller Hall and has served for the past two years at PRA Group, first as the Global HRIS director and then most recently as the head of Diversity and Inclusion and HR technology. She's out there doing the work, the real work, every single day. Tara, welcome. It is always good to speak with alumni. I'm certain I've messed something up about your background. Tell our listeners a little bit more about who you are and how you found your way from the MBA into DEI work.

Tara Borchers

Hey, Phil. Thanks. Yeah, no, actually, that's probably the best way of describing me. When you said that, I was like, I like it multi-dimensional. That's another word of that could be kind of random. I played inside of DEI space, HR, technology, risk. And that's fun. It's like one of those things that allows you to have a really broad perspective and be able to kind of weave in and out of people, processes, programs, technologies, and it's been great.

Phil Wagner

I'm already going off-script here because, of course, I am. A lot of times, I think we see a natural progression from HR into DEI. Based on your experience, do you think it's helpful, particularly for students, our own MBA students, who want to find their way into DEI work, to have done coursework or have done experience in HR, or do you think the tech has helped you? Do you think it's a mindset that has helped you most in that space? Is there any particular aspect of your education or training that really naturally propelled you in the DEI space?

Tara Borchers

No, I think some of the best experience I have comes from working inside of talent management processes and consulting with leaders and coaching leaders. And I think that's because you think about the lifecycle of an employee, understanding that experience from how you hire someone, how you identify talent and build talent, how you prepare someone for the next level so that they can be successful. Those things actually, I think, have been most impactful and helpful because those are the areas where if you're really thinking about building a diverse or robust talent pipeline, those programs and practices really, really matter.

Phil Wagner

That's so good. I'm already taking notes. I'm like, that's a perfect framework, I think, for when we work with our own students here. So during the first time we met, you talked about your work, and you positioned yourself as someone who thinks globally. You said directly I tend to think globally. I think I am guilty so often of taking not just a Western lens but just a US-centric lens to DEI work because we work with 200 to 400 students every single year, many of whom will work here in the States. So I'm hoping I can learn from you today. Can you speak to where your global lens sort of came from, how you developed it, and how it shapes and defines your approach to DEI work?

Tara Borchers

My brother and I often joke that we have the best childhood. We grew up in a little nook in Northern Virginia where no one on the street in which we lived in was the same. Socioeconomic status, family status, race, religion. It was all different. And so, as a child, I just had fun. Like, I had friends, and I had their parents, and I had their grandparents, and I had their cousins. And people were very real to me. And I think that that's one of the things that was so helpful for me was that I was always around people who we had a lot of similarities and we had a lot of differences. And I loved them. They're my friends. I think about how that translated to work. I've been able to work at a lot of global companies with people who either emigrated to the US and work but they come from a different culture or from people who are still living in their country of origin. And I think the things I learned as a child have been really helpful. Just like that natural curiosity of being able to kind of ask questions that make you familiar with each other, of being able to actually understand the nuances of why people might approach something different and not being worried about their differences threatening my own sense of myself.

Phil Wagner

Oh, that's good.

Tara Borchers

And I think that when I think about how that matters in the workplace, people who have less experiences, I think a lot of times that's the harder thing is being able to kind of break it open a little bit and be able to appreciate and ask questions and engage and be okay with differences because those differences are actually where the beauty comes in. Like the cracks in the window where the sun shines, and so it just allows you to really kind of be able to see and appreciate the value that comes from a group of people who are really super different.

Phil Wagner

Love that. So I think as a guiding mental model, that really sort of sets the bar very high for us. It gives us something to aspire to. I'm wondering, on the ground level, what sort of differentiates a global approach to DEI as opposed to maybe just sort of, again, like, my own approach, which is often misguided sort of focused here on the nuances of the States and DEI within sort of our own complex political and social system right now. Looks a lot different than how DEI work might play out globally. Right? Like racism in Europe operates differently than how racism in the US plays out. Same system, different structures. So can you speak to how DEI work might play out differently globally?

Tara Borchers

Yeah, I think one of the things that is really interesting is that you can measure things, but measurements have no feelings, and they don't really tell you the story.

Phil Wagner

I love that.

Tara Borchers

It's important. Data is incredibly important. And I once had a leader that I had the pleasure of learning from when I was doing executive development. And he gave advice to this cohort, and he was like, data is not good data, it's not bad data, it's just data.

Phil Wagner

Yes.

Tara Borchers

Out there.

Phil Wagner

Yes.

Tara Borchers

And if someone can trust your data, then you can have a conversation about what does this data say? How do we feel about this? Is this representative of this? Right? But data has no feelings. People do. So you can decide that you're going to do a program from a global standpoint, such as an ERG, an employee resource group, and you can say, yeah, we're going to talk about caregiving. Because if you think about generationally where people are, there are people who are caring for their children, they're caring for their adult children who are not going to leave their home due to neurodiversity issues or health issues or any other kind of diagnoses, and then they may have their parents they're caring for. So caregiving is like one of those things that you might look and be like, oh, it's like a universal global matter. Everybody's doing caregiving. Everybody is. But depending on where you are around the globe, the cultural norms about how a family cares for each other are very different. Even in the States, how families care for each other are very different. Sometimes it's regional. Sometimes it is related to economics. Sometimes it is truly cultural and based upon someone's, like the culture of their home, of native origin versus their American. But if you go into Europe and you go into the Nordics, the Nordics, that is a country that provides so much as a part of being a citizen, in Sweden or in Norway or in some of the other countries in the north region. So that experience is different than a person in the UK who also has some government-provided benefits versus the US who has less government-provided benefits. So the burden is different on a family. The approach is different on a family. The needs are different on a family. So it's one of those things that you all share the common element, but the practice is different, and the nuance is different. And so if you tried to tell everybody that we were going to have an employee resource group that was focused on caregiving and it was going to be from the US point of view, it would really miss the nuances of what is happening locally or regionally. And at the same point, if you were having one from the Swedish point of view or the Norwegian point of view, everyone would be trying to move there because you'd look at it and you'd be like, wow, that is a very different perspective. And so, to me, that's the concept of being able to understand that the way of life is different and what is available to you is different. And frankly, how you age is different. It's upon how you lived your life anyways. And we all know from the data out there that that is different based upon the country that you're in.

Phil Wagner

No, I really love this. So I have a dear friend, Liz Stigler, who's at the Chinese American Service League. She's been on a previous episode, and we asked her what would make your life like. What could everyday normal leaders people do to make your life as a DEI officer better? And she gave something that was so surprising, but it really resonated with me, and she said, don't tune out. Pay attention to what's sort of going on in your political systems, not just nationally but globally and at the community level. And I hear those themes here too. To be a good DEI practitioner means globally pay attention to how structures are different, how systems are different, how institutions are different. How did you learn to grapple all that? One of the things grapple with all that, I should say one of the things I struggle with is that there's no one canon for DEI work. When it comes to workplace safety. We've got entire systems and structures and manuals. When it comes to the law and or HR policy, we have sort of a consistent canon, but not really in DEI. So you've got a sort of self-fashion and education in, I mean, everything race, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, like all of the different identity affinities. That's a lot of education to sort of self-develop and then to think about how those play out globally, how that looks in Russia, how that looks in Israel, how that looks in East Asia, how that looks in South Africa. I mean, these are all so different. How do you, as a DEI practitioner, do the professional development to become aware of all the different global nuances? That's a lot to take on, isn't it?

Tara Borchers

It is. And one, I think you should never expect yourself to hit the level of mastery. I think you should just commit yourself to lifetime listening and hoping that through the listening and discovering that you're actually learning so that you can apply. I do think that one of the courses I took at a different university when I was studying human development was on understanding really cultural nuances and having some context for how it is different, how conversations are different, how conflict is different, how based upon the society, how men and women interact differently just based upon those things. I find myself having that conversation with friends and colleagues on the US side. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we hear like, oh, I don't see differences, which is a dangerous thing. It's a limiting thing. Right. See the difference so that you can put it in perspective and make the assumption that someone is not behaving a certain way. Understand why they're behaving differently than your norm. What is their norm? Just ask a couple of questions about that. How comfortable are you challenging that, and why is that? And I think part of it is getting really good at asking questions and just assuming that you need to always be listening and learning and asking questions and getting very comfortable asking questions. I had the person who worked for me once while I was in the tech side of my life, and like you ask so many questions, it really is embarrassing. And I was like, oh, okay. And so it made me really self-conscious. So I stopped asking questions that were still swimming in my head. And then I started watching things play out, and I was like, you know what? I need to have confidence in the fact that I can see something and I'm asking questions for a reason. So maybe I need to be better at putting context around why I'm asking a question.

Phil Wagner

That's good.

Tara Borchers

Or be more intentional about pulling the thread. If I ask this question, because now I'm asking this question, so what does that mean? And I think especially when you're in DEI work, where you're going to pull the thread. We are a tapestry, right? And there are very many threads that are coming through, and the back end of a tapestry is just gnarly, and the front end is beautiful. There's somebody who's always weaving, and if you are in DEI, you are weaving. You're always kind of like coming in and out. You're pulling threads, you're finding things, and you have to be okay knowing that you do not know it all.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And having, I think, the intellectual humility when you thread the wrong way to back it up. Right? I mean, I'm certain that you've been there too, right? You've been in places where you've dropped the ball, certainly, right? You've done things the wrong way. How do you recover from those types of things? Any advice to people who might find themselves having dropped the ball? Well-intentioned in their pursuit of outcomes, but maybe not perfect in the achievement?

Tara Borchers

Well, good old-fashioned owning it never hurt anybody. I mean, it does. There are times you can really mess something up, and you're like, oh, I got to take it, and I got to own it. And it does hurt. But what you're doing is showing some integrity that bridges any kind of position, right, of saying like, this was mine and I failed to execute, I executed poorly, I missed it, whatever. And I think that that's just a natural being of being able to do that. I also think that there are times, and especially what I found in DEI is, that sometimes when we miss it is because we have failed to ground ourselves in meaning. A good old-fashioned operational definition. So another part of my random past is I have a black belt that I generally refer to as agree belt because I don't use the black belt, but I use so much of it. I pick and choose the things that I think are super meaningful. And what I apply to my talent world, to my HR technology world, and to DEI is operational definitions. When I say orange, this is what orange looks like to me. What does orange look like to you? And then I'll hear you say something, and you might say something like, oh, interesting. Okay, so that's orange to you. To me, that is a mandarin. And so you're just starting to talk about the nuances of differences. And that's an important element that I think sometimes can keep you from failure in the first place is to be really kind of clear. But I also think the most important part of failure in DEI or any other scope is a fast follow of not defending but not attacking. How did we fail? And let's capture it now. So that we're really thinking about how to adapt and learn quickly while it stings is the best time to actually figure that stuff out and document it so that you don't like when you're going back to that program, process, conversation, or whatever, you're less likely to fail in the same time. People will forgive the first failure usually, right? They'll even forgive the second failure. But if you keep failing, they're going to start questioning whether or not you have the discipline to execute something. And so you're better off not failing a second time. And you actually can control that most time if you're really thinking about how to prevent it being maybe a little bit more cautious, muscle memory get you in a good space.

Phil Wagner

This is so good. And I'm still stuck on the oranges and mandarins sort of thing you tee up here. Because what I think of then is that we can do such a great job of establishing context, or I would say like establishing the why, right, that we would all have this clear understanding of why we do what we do, but we're still going to have different access points. You've managed DEI initiatives. How do you sort of corral your human capital around this central why, recognizing that everybody has different access points, right? Our personal experiences or some people will only get to this commitment through the business case, which I think is a little nauseating, but if I can get you, I can get you. Some will do it only out of compliance. Some do it out of sort of a moral obligation or political buy-in. Like, how do you corral everybody's different access points to the central DEI? Why that you try to situate within your organization?

Tara Borchers

Do you need to corral everybody?

Phil Wagner

That's good.

Tara Borchers

And I just say, like, think Gladwell. Isn't Gladwell the one who talks about, like, mavens and connectors? I think it's important to know who you need to corral versus trying to get everyone on board. And I think that sometimes is probably a little bit clinical, maybe a little bit surgical, but you're not going to get everyone on board. And if that is your intent, you are probably setting yourself up for some sadness, some stress, some dissatisfaction. And so I think it's about being more thoughtful about what is it that you're trying to do. Who are the people who can best influence, advise, empower? Who are the people who are committed? The difference between commitment and compliance, right? Compliance is just like transactional, and commitment is much more emotional. And so it's kind of like, who's going to be there? And I think that once you do things well, over time, you continue to listen, evolve, put more chairs at the table, then you start to gain momentum. One of the things that I say a lot inside of the talent space because I think if you're thinking DEI is not talent, but they really are connected. You need to keep an abundance mentality. You have to keep putting chairs at the table. Maybe you need to add an extension to the table. Don't keep the table to a finite amount of people who can be engaged. Make sure that there's room for everyone and people can come to the table, or they can choose not to come to the table. But if you're in DEI, you are best having a big table and to just keep thinking about making space and making meaningful space. Don't burn people out on non-value-added things, but keep room at the table for conversations and for insight and for, storytelling and for, data gathering, and all those things.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. I love so much of how you speak about DEI because you have such balance. You and I, in a past conversation, have talked about the balance between sort of DEI as an art and also as a science. And I agree that data is monumentally important, but you also don't flee from emotions, and I think that's so important here. You mentioned storytelling specifically, and I think that specifically can just light a fire in otherwise skeptical folks. To hear the real lived experiences, to see through a different lens of reality. How different folks walk through this world differently, I think, can really illuminate a lot. Let's talk a little bit about the balance of DEI as an art and a science. First, let's talk about the science. We talk about measurement. Measurement is so important. How do you measure and set metrics or KPIs globally when different parts of the global community see identity-related and employment issues differently? Like, how do you establish coherent KPIs, metrics, goals that can be actualized when this plays out so differently?

Tara Borchers

Yeah, it's really true. And part of it is there is no perfect way, or maybe there is, and if you find one, please let me know or send that person to me to have a chat.

Phil Wagner

You got it.

Tara Borchers

But I don't know of a way where you can get grounded in one place on what it looks like to have representation of people who are qualified to work in your organization. In the US, we have that with the EEOC. That's a good place to start to be able to really understand the industry you're in, the locations that you're in, and then be able to say, so, if that's the case, what does the EEOC tell me? Based upon all of their data, and they have all the data, what does it look like? What is a good expectation of the available population wherever I am in the industry, I am? I think that's a good place to start at times is starting with the data that you have and being able to kind of say, if that is what it is, let's look at our US population. Because sometimes you do have to just kind of break it down to your point, place by place, what's our US population? And let's look at our jobs and our roles and kind of look at it that way. And you can choose to look at other countries or regions the same way. You can break them down country by country. I don't know of other countries, and that is probably a short sight of mine, that have the same amount of data available, though some of them make a lot of data available. I just don't think it's, to my knowledge, as clean and crisp as the EEOC data. But it might be, and I actually might give myself the task of doing some exploration on that. I think that's one thing you look outside. I think the other thing is where the art and science is where you look inside, and you really look at your roles, and you really think about, and you do your data, and you do your analysis, you chart things, you see where people are in your organization and the types of roles they're in. And then you do have to start to say, where are we missing an opportunity to be intentional about finding talent that is different than what we have today? Finding or developing talent internally so that they're ready for another organization and things like that, or another part of the organization and things like that. I do think that it's something that you can report on globally, but it is not global work. If that makes sense, because once again, it's just data. You actually need to put people together in a room who can talk about the meaning of the data. I feel like I've totally rambled on that, but it's just that there's no silver bullet.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Tara Borchers

And I think that's the hard thing for any of us when we're working through it is like there is the nuanced conversations, and there might be the reality of, hey, in this country, they are predominantly white. In the culture of the country, it is predominant that men have college educations, and we have an industry that requires certain skill sets that you acquire typically through college. There may be all of these extenuating circumstances that already really narrow the pipeline. And so then you may look at that and say, okay, so if that's the case, then let's understand and accept the reality of the situation of the country. And then let's look at the culture of our organization in there. And that's where having engagement surveys for where I work now, we have an engagement and inclusion survey where we're really kind of asking questions. That's where you can kind of get a toad and a temperament of how are you doing? It's also really important to know that not every country allows you to have access to all that data.

Phil Wagner

And that's one of the things I was wondering, too. Like global privacy laws, right? Even just around data protection, there have to be sort of country-specific deterrence to even getting good data, right?

Tara Borchers

Well, and so I would say there is no such thing as a global privacy law. There are country-specific privacy laws.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's what I should have said.

Tara Borchers

I liked how you said that. Gave me a little good entry, and so I could kind of challenge that. So I appreciate that.

Phil Wagner

You got it. That's what I'm here for.

Tara Borchers

Yeah, I did a great job. But there's even inside the United States. There are state-specific laws that also are kind of modeled off of some European privacy laws. You do have to kind of think about that, and I actually think that's a great thing because it is protecting us as individuals. It's challenging companies to think about why you need this data in the first place. If you're in DEI, it just stinks because that data matters. You might want to look at it through the lens of a person who is bisexual, and you might want to just really kind of slice and dice the data, and you don't have it because in a specific country, maybe you're not even allowed to ask for it. Or in different countries, it is just the practice where people do not share it. And so you have to kind of know and understand that that data may not be available to you, which is why you still have to have a good old-fashioned conversation. You still have to have access to things. It's also why employee resource groups are phenomenal because you can self-select into an employee resource group. When you're going in there, you can have real conversations inside of a community that allows people to listen and learn from each other. And so that is kind of like the art and science of there are processes, there are technologies, there's data points that you can and should put in place, but they will never replace the value of human interaction inside of DEI.

Phil Wagner

No. That's so, so good. That's so, so good. So I have, I think, probably one final question, which is, you know, we talked about the science. I'm wondering a little bit more about the art, or maybe the framing is the impact of the work. I'm wondering how your measurements, assessments, or work sort of impact the lived daily experiences of employees. I mean, how do you turn the insights that you gather into actionable outcomes that are realistic? How do you turn those insights and actions into maybe the implementation of social support specifically? You and I had a very specific conversation a few months ago on specifically like trans identity and how somebody who lives as trans in San Francisco that looks a lot different than what it means to be trans in Guatemala or Thailand, or Ethiopia. So how do you know how to best implement meaningful social support provisions to employees who are geographically dispersed?

Tara Borchers

I think that when you have the perfect answer for that, Phil, also call me back.

Phil Wagner

I got you. So I got a running list here of things to call. I got you.

Tara Borchers

We're learning together right back to that earlier conversation. I think, once again, it is about being intentional in conversations with people who are trans. Either the people who are inside of your organization who you're trying to support and also organizations that support people who are trans. But that is intentional work. That is about really trying to seek to understand a person who has a different life experience, perhaps, than you do. And it lives inside of a society that may be more accepting or less accepting. And even if you are a trans person in San Francisco, you still are probably worried for your safety at times, right? Or all the time. If you are in different parts of this world, you are worried for your life, and you are worried for the life of your family and the people that you associate with. Your common everyday fear is very, very different because the risk is very different. So I think when you are dealing with areas that you are less familiar with, and you are in regions where you do not know, you have got to tap other resources. You're never going to be 100% alone are never going to be 100% in DEI, but you can put together something that is 100%, but it is probably going to rely on you to expand your network. Look inside of local groups who are supporting areas. The Trevor Project. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Trevor Project.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Tara Borchers

Absolutely wonderful group. Right. And for those of you who may not know, the Trevor Project is really committed to preventing suicide amongst LGBTQ youth, and I would assume also adults, but I know that that's often what their hallmark is. Groups like that are groups that you have to be engaged with. You have to fund. You have to commit to. If that is part of your value system as an organization, you need to make sure that the people who are really on the ground focusing on specific groups are funded enough so that they can do that. That is why inside of DEI as well, you need to be thinking about who your community engagement partners are inside of your organization and having intentional conversations about how you engage in your community, not to just support the person, but to support the groups who support them.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's so good. And I think the higher-order call here is to not see any identity affinity as a monolith. Right. Again, all of those experiences, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, gender, all of the isms the identity experiences, those are going to play out differently based on context. And so this is about reading the room, the global room, and thinking and being very mindful. Not to just assume it's all things to all people, but to be very specific and have precision, almost surgical, in our approach to adapt how we implement our DEI initiatives. Tara, it's lovely talking to you. Thank you for the important work that you do. You represent the Mason School so, so well. And I know you're, you're doing a million things, so it truly is an honor to speak with you. Thanks for giving some of your time to be on our podcast. Lots of fun.

Tara Borchers

I can also say this at the end.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, please.

Tara Borchers

I love that you are hosting this. I think it is so incredibly important, and I hope that people pay attention to the conversations because the power is in the conversations and learning. And so kudos to you.

Phil Wagner

Well, thank you.

Tara Borchers

It's wonderful.

Phil Wagner

Thank you. Thank you, my friend. Always good to chat with you.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at Women & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• Why we should care about cultural self-awareness
• What we mean when we say cultural self-awareness
• Why it's important to be culturally self-aware when approaching DEI work
• How to negotiate the different processes of being self-aware culturally
• What are some steps to take to achieve cultural self-awareness
• How to deal with a problematic cultural heritage
• What it will take for everyone to get on the same DEI page

Transcript

Jesse Ross

And so, for me, the self-awareness or even recognizing, starting with ourselves, is we do have a choice. Now, do those choices become more difficult or harder when the decks are stacked against you? Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, podcast friends, to another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. I'm really excited to speak today with Jesse Ross. Jesse Ross is a DEI consultant, an executive coach, and an international speaker. He's super well-traveled, having delivered over 400 engagements at colleges, conferences, corporations, nonprofits, and beyond. He has worked with a number of clients on their DEI initiatives, including LinkedIn, General Mills, the MBA, Security and Financial, and beyond. He's out there. He's doing the work. He's doing the real work.

Phil Wagner

Jesse, it's an honor to host you here, my friend. Welcome to our podcast. Tell our listeners maybe a little bit more about you and what it is that you do day in and day out.

Jesse Ross

Yeah, thank you for having me, Phil. I'm very grateful to be here. It's always weird when people read your bio, you're like, oh, yeah, I did do that. What I try to tell people is, first and foremost, I'm a father, I'm a husband, I genuinely love my family. So when I'm not doing all the stuff that people will read about, I'm at home with my family, making sure that they survive and don't tear up my home. So that's the main thing. And then outside of that, man, I'm very invested in my community. We'll probably kind of get into this maybe a little bit later, but I'm in the process of actually purchasing a commercial real estate property in my own community, which is a whole other part of the DEI space. And then just enjoying people. I feel like we're finally getting back to people being outside and enjoying seeing each other. And so I'm just trying to enjoy the Minnesota summer because that's where I'm located, and it doesn't last long, so I'm trying to take it up as much as possible.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, there's no such thing as enjoying the Virginia summer. It sort of, like, teases us, and then it is here in full force, and it is. I mean, I lived in South Florida for many years, and I would argue it's worse here. Enjoy your Minnesota summer.

Jesse Ross

I'll take it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I am really excited to hear a little bit more about that real estate development. I don't think that we talk enough about space and place in our conversations on community and DEI, and I think that's a very important conversation to have. So certainly something we'll tee up in a little bit. But what I'm hoping we can do today to start things off is to talk about something I know you speak to regularly, which is cultural self-awareness. We talk a lot about self-awareness in the context of executive leadership. I work with MBA students and masters of accounting students and students who are, like, bound for the C suite. So tell us a little bit more from your perspective about why we should care about cultural self-awareness within this broader realm of DEI work.

Jesse Ross

Yeah, it's a great question. So one of the most basic ways that I enjoy tackling this is you just mentioned, right, Virginia summer, you used to live in Florida, and I live in Minnesota. Right. Those three places are so completely different. Right. There's some definition similarity that again, but if we're just talking about summers, right, literally our summers are about eight weeks, maybe, because it literally goes from winter, winter, winter, winter, winter, to, like, one day of spring to summer and then back to fall, and so then it kind of runs that way. Right. But we get a lot of snow, and our winter season is also construction season. And so it's like figuring out how that happens. And there are certain things that happen in the Twin Cities or in Minnesota that, just by geography, are completely different than Virginia, completely different than Florida, completely different than California. And so when we're talking about cultural self-awareness, it's not just like the top line things that we can see race, ethnicity, gender, language, all of those things which are important, for sure, but it's really diving deeper into what is part of the culture and what makes up culture. A lot of it is place, a lot of it is climate, a lot of it is language. And so, really, I'm trying to help people recognize, like, you may operate out of this way due to things that were really not even under your control. I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, moved here to Minneapolis when I was a baby. I didn't have any control of that. My parents are from the South, so some of the values that we kind of have are very similar, probably to those folks that grew up in Virginia or in Florida, because it's a Southern kind of feel. We have this thing called Minnesota Nice, where it's basically very passive aggressiveness. Right. And I don't have that bone in my body simply because of my parents and where they came from. And so I'm trying to help people recognize, like, definitely be self-aware, but there are things culturally that are beyond those top line things that go deeper that really shape our perspective and our worldview.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, there's a lot of unpacking. Right. And I think skeptics come to this and say, okay, self-awareness cool. But, like, in the context of DEI, you're talking about this in the context of the United States, which is a melting pot of cultures. Does it really matter that we focus on those nuances? But I think those nuances and how they intersect, of course, either complicate or make the space easier to toil within. A lot of what you do invites us to think about starting with us. And that seems counterintuitive, I think, at first. Right. In the context of DEI, we think about helping others, building a better world for other folks. Why do you think it's important to begin with looking at ourselves, looking at our culture, looking at our history, and being self-aware first and foremost?

Jesse Ross

Yeah. Honestly, it's the only thing we really can control. To put it as basic as possible. I can't control the teacher that taught me the thing in third grade, nor can I actually go back and change that. I really can't even control what my parents decided was best for me. Right. I may have a little bit of influence, but not really. But right now, as an adult, I control what I see, well, to some degree, what I see on social media, what I decide to read, where I decide to spend my time, how I decide who I decide to hang out with. And I think that us piece is so important because we like to be the victim of societal problems. We like to say, well, it was the administration, it was the government, it was my job, it was the thing, the thing, the thing. And so I'm hoping to create some responsibility to say, well, you are your own human being, and you are in control of way more than you actually realize. And since now I can get that across to you, if it starts with us, how much can we actually control or change or shift? Now, that is a very difficult question because we don't like to change. We don't like to be honest about where we are. But I'm really hoping that if we can recognize that things were not maybe right or can be different, then it allows us to create this legacy of influencing other people that the world can also be a little different.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So I think this plays out differently for different groups of people. I'm really always hesitant to use the victim approach, but the g of the matter is some people are, quote-unquote, victims of a society that is riddled with systemic and institutional racisms as just one example, right?

Jesse Ross

Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

This journey towards self-awareness and self-awareness in shaping how we address those inequities that's going to play out differently for different people groups. Right. Like self-awareness in the DEI space is going to look different from what for white folks than it is for black and brown folks or for queer folks. So how do you negotiate the different sort of processes to being culturally self-aware?

Jesse Ross

That's a great observation. I can only speak for myself. Right. I don't speak for every black human being or every male. Growing up, my mother and I were never my mother, and my dad were never married. My mother passed away when I was eleven years old, went to go live with my dad, but we didn't have a great relationship. And then I left home. Right. Now, I could say, and I did say for a really long time, things would be a lot different if my mom was here. And I believe that. That's definitely true. I also decided that because things were different, that this is the way my life has to be or is going to be. Right, now, one would argue, and I loved your point. Right. I don't necessarily like even saying and using the term victim. It came out, and I immediately cringed.

Phil Wagner

No, I didn't mean to correct you. I think you used it entirely well. It's more just me as I reconcile with because we come from different positionalities. Right. You're a man of color. I am not. I think even just how we use the same words.

Jesse Ross

Exactly.

Phil Wagner

So no, that was me personally not saying, oh, you said something because it's perfect.

Jesse Ross

I got you. I did say, because of this thing that happened here's, how my life is going to be, and to some aspects that it probably was true. But there were a lot of things that I did not understand about the world, about how to process emotions, about how the world viewed me, where I kind of just played into it unknowingly, unconsciously. And then, as I graduated high school, went to college, there was a whole other narrative, and I became more aware of that. And I think there was a very clear moment where I said, you know what, I'm not going to do that in multiple areas of my life. And so, for me, the self-awareness or even recognizing, starting with ourselves, is we do have a choice. Now do those choices become more difficult or harder when the decks are stacked against you? Absolutely. Do those choices become difficult or harder when the world or your space of influence or circle of influence shows you only one side of the story? Absolutely right. But I think once we get to the point where we can say even what you just mentioned right, is like, well, I'm just aware that things are different because we grew up differently, we look differently, we probably had different experiences. That truth alone can uncover so many other truths. But the difficult thing is recognizing that that is actually a truth. And then the hardest part that I see people struggle with is if that's true, that means something else is untrue.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Jesse Ross

And if something else is untrue and it's only one thing, there's probably about 10,000 or 10 million things that are untrue. And I'm afraid of actually uncovering that because the world as I know it is going to become different. And I think we are just afraid and fearful of change and doing something different, and so I'm hoping that people will take up the challenge or the call of, hey, you are also in control of more than you realize. But it does actually start with you and how much influence that we have. I think sometimes that kind of plays a part too. I hope that was explained.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, it is. And I think to me it's getting comfortable with the fact that, and this is, I think, uncomfortable for some people, there can be multiple truths in any given context. Right. Like, I think that it's true that individual mindset matters, but also you can have the most resilient mindset in the world, and that mindset alone is not going to be the latter that allows you to climb out of a pit of multiple generations or centuries of systemic and institutional racism. And so we work on maybe one and the other. I'm always very nervous to be like, let's work on resilience, but I think let's work on mindset shifts while we also address institutional change as well. And there's sort of multiple truths that I think can exist in that space. That's sort of my perspective. I'm not sure if it resonates with you or not, but I think from that lens of cultural self-awareness, recognizing that this is multidimensional, this is very nuanced and complicated, and so it's looking at the whole gamut of how to address these systemic inequities.

Jesse Ross

Yeah, and you got to get people, and that's why the questions I don't think your questions are tricky, but for people who don't do this on a regular basis, it can be very compartmentalizing or tricky because people feel or want to solve the whole thing. And it's like, Nah, this is way deeper than anything that you're going to solve today or even next week. But we can take a small piece and start working on that and start seeing the correlation between that area and then something else. And then it starts to kind of unravel, hopefully in a good way versus in a bad way.

Phil Wagner

So we're talking about cultural self-awareness. How do you become culturally self-aware? How do you understand your own cultural context, your own cultural heritage? What do you mean by being culturally self-aware? And how do you attain that?

Jesse Ross

Yeah, so I try to walk people through, again, very basic, and I make the joke in all sincerity and genuineness. I try to deliver things very GED-certified, right? Not that people, and I think when people hear that context, it can be very basic, very attainable information, so that people aren't having these very complex things and feel like, I don't know if I can do that. So I tell people to kind of just look at literally, like, where did you grow up? So geographically, where did you grow up? What were inside your household? Certain things that might have happened in the city or the county or the country, wherever you may have lived at. Right. What were expectations that were placed upon you? If you grew up in a rural community and you grew up on a farm, everybody pretty much worked, or most of the time, all the guys worked. Right. And that might be a true thing. So think about those things, those small expectations that were based upon you. Then you can kind of think, go a little bit further. Right. Neighborhood norms. In my neighborhood that I grew up, there were a couple of folks that always looked out. There was a couple of older ladies that were always on their front porches, and they kind of lived in like two separate blocks, and they knew everything. Right. They were like the community watch folks. They're also, during the holiday season, there's like a parkway where everybody, whether it's holidays or if it's July 4, whatever, they like, in synchronization, will coordinate their lights and put up flags and do all these different decorations and stuff. And so maybe there were some neighborhood norms or what seemed normal, right, to you. And then we kind of go a little bit higher and further. And so I'd start to get people like, let's just focus on where you are first, then expand a little bit. Think about those broader community expectations. You start playing fine, or you start getting involved in fine arts, extracurricular activities, and then there are things that start to go a little further out. Right. Subcultures things that happen. My son's in the choir, and there's a whole choir culture community, but giving people very basic information. It's like if I can just start here and see what are things that typically happen. And then, if you can identify a person from a different cultural community than yours, right? So you and I can do this. Let me actually ask you this question. Do you at all celebrate Thanksgiving? Christmas, kind of like.

Phil Wagner

Both of those, specifically.

Jesse Ross

Perfect. Let's just do Thanksgiving because I like to eat. What are either meals or kind of things that you typically do to celebrate the holiday?

Phil Wagner

We definitely do. So we get up early we start food prep. I love to cook because I also love to eat. And we go for all of the Southern classics, I think.

Jesse Ross

There you go.

Phil Wagner

For us. So it's like very much turkey, ham, macaroni, and cheese, of course. We've got greens, we've got rolls, we've got dressing, we've got potatoes, we've got yams. All the stuff, all the stuff. And then we typically will do some sort of like we'll go outside or something. Like we'll get our bodies moving. And then we'll eat, eat, and then we will sit back and watch some sports, watch a movie, come back, eat it again. Yeah, kind of just keep doing that.

Jesse Ross

Absolutely. Do you all typically eat at the same time almost every year or so?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think so. Probably around anywhere between 130 and 230 in that vicinity. Like a little bit late. So you're extra hungry. You're like, you really want it?

Jesse Ross

Yes, I love it. Okay, now and then, let's just do, and I'm coming back, don't worry. For Christmas or kind of in that season. Same thing or a little different?

Phil Wagner

Little different. We will travel and see family around the bookends of the Christmas holiday, which is what we celebrate in our household. But we will always make it a point to be back by midday Christmas Eve. So that my little family of four, my wife and my two kids. It's just us in our space. Christmas Eve is like pajamas and some yummy food, probably like baking cookies for Santa. My kids never bought Santa. Sorry if your kids are listening in the car, and you might my kids never bought it. But however you celebrate or whatever you celebrate, totally fine. Then we'll get up early, and it's like family day. And so I think the bigger tradition is more just like family togetherness in that space where that's a no email day, that's a no folk, that's just us day. And all the presents, all the food we'll typically drive around, look at lights, like, that kind of thing.

Jesse Ross

Yeah, okay. And ours are very similar. Again, I think most of that is actually due to the Southern kind of connection versus white, black, small family, large family, whatever, a couple of things that we do a little bit different. And so I didn't even get into the details right, but there are certain things that you might make that might be the difference. Right? Some people put the turkey in the oven. Some people like frying the turkey. Some grill the turkey.

Phil Wagner

But yeah, I got no grease from me. I can't do it. I've seen too many.

Jesse Ross

There it is. Some people put it on the grill. Some people smoke it. There's all those different things. There's what types of sides, right? Do you use sweet potatoes or candy yams? And those are two different things, technically. Do you put marshmallows on top or not? Like all of those different things, right? And so what I try to get people to recognize is we can celebrate the same thing but do it completely different ways. And both are right. And so giving people that kind of lens of, like, man and then the other end, right? So there are people that we know, and I love how you said it. Right? There are people who do not celebrate Christmas. There are people who might just celebrate and who also don't even like saying the word Thanksgiving, right? Because of the historical context, of course, we don't go. Hey, we're going to celebrate Thanksgiving. It's like, hey, that holiday, around the time that we do that, we're just going to use that as an opportunity to get together. I have a blended family, and so while I would love it to be, hey, we're going to just this day, we're cutting everything off. We're typically kind of spending half a day, pre-day, and you start to develop those traditions or rituals or routines based on where you are. And those are the things that I think, and I know, getting into one of the questions about the workplace. Right? There are routines that we have subconsciously that we don't even realize. Here's another thing, and I know we'll get to it, but I tell people I like to use my examples all the time. My wife is biracial. She's very white passing to white people, which I think is funny. And then, any person of color knows that. They might not know that she's black, but they know that she's a person of color. And so she loves watching movies. I just started watching movies when we got together because I just don't like I don't do a lot of TV, but when I watch TV for about the first two or three years for our marriage, she would always go like, oh, yeah, that's so and so. And I'd be like, who's that? Now, part of this is because I didn't watch a lot of TV, but growing up, I didn't even realize this until her and I were talking. My mom, it wasn't like she was intentional. But we never really watched white, predominantly white shows. So I'd never seen friends. I'd never seen Saved by the Bell, all these stuff. I watched the Mighty Ducks. Like, she let me do that. But all of our shows that we typically watch were focused around black culture. And this sounds terrible, but I use this to help it make sense when I'm doing these presentations. Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and there's one other guy. They all literally were the same person to me. I thought they were actually the same person. They don't look alike at all. Or Ben Affleck. That's who it was.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Jesse Ross

And people go, what? I can't believe that. And I was like, but also, can you now believe why I would be offended if you thought I looked like Ice Cube?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Jesse Ross

Or Michael Vick.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Jesse Ross

And now these guys I actually do think I have some resemblance to also. Right. But giving people the context, like, based on my experience and exposure or inexperience and inexposure. Right. I didn't know the difference, or I didn't identify with this type of culture or subculture. And so that's kind of a long way of answering. But I just think it's very practical to help people go into, like, oh, that does make sense. That's why I don't get into punk rock because I didn't grow up listening to it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I love that because what it does is it acknowledges a reality, and it is not a moral indictment. It is not good or bad.

Jesse Ross

Right.

Phil Wagner

Did or did not watch Friends.

Jesse Ross

Right.

Phil Wagner

Of which I have seen every single episode. A little embarrassing. But you know what? The pandemic was rough for all of us. So don't judge me. But that's not good or bad. It was just a reality. And so it's not good or bad that maybe you grew up in rural, small-town America where you weren't surrounded by folks of color, and now you have to just acknowledge that lack of experience and maybe put in a little extra work to factor that into your thinking. It doesn't make you a bad person. Right. It just means maybe you have different type of work to do here.

Jesse Ross

That's right.

Phil Wagner

I really like the foundation that sets for us to go forward in an action-oriented capacity.

Jesse Ross

Absolutely. Yeah. It's all about work, and I think it does cost all of us something. The only class that I retain for real around policy analysis was a guy named Dr. Samuel Myers at the University of Minnesota. He literally said in policy. There's always a trade-off. The question is, can you figure out what the trade-off is? Because it always going to cost you something. It's either going to cost you time, money, energy, not watching something or watching more of something, listening to something. And once I kind of brought that lens into it, I said, okay, like you said, not a moral indictment at all. No guilt, no shame. And there are people who do that, right? There are people who make money off doing that. But I really want to bring people and just say, now that you know where you are, what can we do now? And what you do might be completely different than what I do, but if we're all doing something that, at least we can have a greater appreciation for each other.

Phil Wagner

So within this context of moral indictments and feelings wrapped up in morality, I'm thinking, like, what if you go digging into your own cultural subcontext and come back with feelings of guilt? What if you're my last name is Wagner, right? I go back in my German heritage, thankfully. Thankfully, I have. And it's not as dark as what it could be. Right. But if you're a Caucasian person and you go deep digging here at the College of Women & Mary, we have a complicated history with slavery that we are not trying to brush under the rug. We own it. We acknowledge it. We are working to heal from those and make sure that we do the right thing in the next 330 years of our legacy. What if you go digging and you find stuff that's like, my cultural self context is not a flattering one? Or maybe even on the flip side, if you're a person of color and you dig back a few generations, and you look at the direct ties to slavery or something like that, what do you do then with those emotions when your cultural self context or cultural self-awareness is compromised by those really conflicting histories? How do you grapple with those?

Jesse Ross

Yeah, I think that's an amazing question. And if I'm honest, I don't have a well-thought-out answer because I think it is different for every person, right? And so one of the challenges, and this actually comes up a lot when I'm working with people one on one or working with larger organizations, let's acknowledge. So I like to ask questions, right? One of the questions that I typically will ask people is, what are some strategies or support systems that you can use to help you? So now that you found out this information, are you just going to stuff it, stop there, are you going to share it with someone? What are the strategies now that you come up to that piece of information that can help you? And help is a very generalized word, right? Help might be process. Help might be just listen. Help might be okay. Now I have questions I got to go ask other people so I can find out more. But if you don't have those strategies and support systems, I think it can take you into that dark place which we all know exists, and we all know that information can present challenges or opportunities. And so another question I will ask people is like, how do these findings actually produce or present challenges and opportunities based on where you are? Maybe now that I know, I'm going to kind of shift the rest of how I do things based on that information so I don't repeat that cycle in my family. It might be I don't really like that this is the cause and roots of where this institution that I've committed my financial and my moral time to, and I'm going to transfer. I think everyone should be able to decide that for themselves. Most of the time, though, we find out that information, and we do nothing with it. And so I try to get people like, you can do anything, I just don't want you to do nothing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and I agree. And organizations have to do this too. We've got a dear colleague at the University of San Diego, Sarah Federman, who looks at how organizations, really specifically the railway industry, has pastized to slavery specifically, and how they have worked to rebrand. And reidentify and I think even organizations have the work of looking to complicated pasts and being self-aware too. Earlier, you talked about all of us and the different access points that we have into this conversation and how that cultural self-context helps us sort of diversify our approach. But it seems to me that kind of complicates things and makes it more nuanced when in many ways as DEI practitioners, we're trying to simplify things, right? Like, aren't we trying to develop a common universal language around DEI? So is it possible if we're all so self-aware, we're all coming at this from different access points? Can we actually all get on the same page? Any thoughts there?

Jesse Ross

That's a really good question. So I think there's a trade-off always, right? If we're all on the same page? Well, one, how long will it take for us to get on the same page? That's a question I think about because we're all starting. We've all seen the images of the equity and what that looks like or equality. And people really get those confused because they're not the same thing. But the pictures of the three kids and the baseball field or the tree and the ladders and the boxes and a woman told me a really long time ago, the analogy that is always used is like if you give a person a fish, they can eat for a day. If you teach a person a fish, they can eat for a lifetime. And then she added, but if you change the rules of the pond, then you change a whole generation. And I kind of was like, wait, what do you mean? What she was really expanding upon is saying, hey, you might have an open face, and I'm not a fisherman, so please don't judge me.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, me neither. So I wouldn't know how to correct you.

Jesse Ross

There you go. You might have an open-face reel. Someone else might have a push-button reel, and then someone else might have just a straight-up pole, a rod. Right. But if we allow people to fish for as long as they need to so they can get everything that they need, then it doesn't matter what the tool is that they use or the method that they use. The goal is always for everyone to not go hungry. And I was like, oh, got it. So on the aspect of us getting on the same page, how long does it take? Or are there dangers in people getting onto the same page or not? I think if the goal is for all of us to be whole and healthy and make sure that people feel like they are included, then we should do that. And no matter how long it takes, no matter how much it cost us. But that's the flip side, is it's going to cost us? And some people are not okay with that. Some people don't want to take the time to get on the same page. Some people don't want to pay the money or lose the money that would go towards them or their insurance because we are just naturally selfish human beings. I try to tell people all the time we are wired for self-preservation. It's just the way that it comes out, which I don't actually feel bad about now that I know. But if somebody comes to your house and they're threatening your family, self-preservation says, let me make sure my family is okay. And that feeling and thought and behavior is the exact same way when somebody recognizes that historically, my family name or company or institution has marginalized people of color or indigenous folks or women or whatever the things is, and then they feel like, wait, I got to protect that because not everything about this thing is bad or was meant for bad.

Phil Wagner

Awesome. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about your community development work. Obviously, being in Minnesota, your state has been in many ways ground zero for huge moments of racial reckoning, particularly over the past ten years, but beyond that as well. So tell me about the work you're doing in your community and communities up there. Are you able to share on that at all?

Jesse Ross

Yeah, no, thank you. I don't actually get a chance to talk about it a lot, and I do a lot, and so I'll do this as simple as possible. So in context for people that are listening, I do live in the city of Minneapolis, not like, outside in the suburbs. So I am about ten minutes, maybe 15 minutes north of where George Floyd was murdered, and I'm about ten minutes south of where Daunte Wright was killed. And so my neighborhood, North Minneapolis, has historically been one of those marginalized communities that has always been historically predominantly African American, but also one of the most underserved, underresourced communities in the country. Or in the country in the state, for sure. And also, the same tag will get the reputation of the worst place to live in the state of Minnesota. Because of that narrative, because of that historical context, I have done my best. I bought a house literally two blocks from where I grew up, and I used to live in a whole other suburb, which is actually really nice, but I wanted to be able to live that out and change that narrative. So a lot of the work that I do is simply like, within probably five to ten minutes of my house, there's an elementary school that two years ago needed some coats. I was having a conversation with the parent liaison and there's literally, like, babies walking to school, coming to school without coats. And she just said, hey, do you know anybody that has about 20 coats? And I was just going to go buy them. And then I thought, well, how many kids are in the school? And she's like, well, there's about 300. Went to the middle school across the street. They needed about 60, and so I asked for 360 coats. Like, help me buy them. Minnesota winters are horrible. And man, we put out a plea on social media, and we got 2500 coats. I still actually have coats in a storage right now that I'm trying to get rid of. So that's an amazing thing. We did the very same thing with the school, and I've kind of like centralized into that school with back to school drive and a backpack drive. And then on the commercial real estate side, during the civil unrest, I used to organize these runs that were at like 04:00 in the morning. Don't judge me. You, listeners, don't judge me. And it was, like, the most peaceful time in the city, and there were a lot of folks that would come. Most of them are white folks. And we'll just kind of ask about the community. And I was kind of just storytelling about community I've lived and loved my entire life. And one person showed up and said she did commercial real estate development, and I was just like, oh, it's kind of interesting that nobody from the community owns our own property and community. And there are stats. Not very specific, but there are stats. About 95% of the property in my neighborhood is not owned. Actually, it's all owned by a white man, like one most of it is owned by one guy. And so I just said, I want to be able to change that. She hired me to do some work with a group of commercial real estate developers, and in that process, she was like, hey, we're going to buy this building, but I really feel like somebody black or brown from the community should own it. And do you want to own a building? And I wasn't ready. I was like, no. But for the last year and a half, she has taught me commercial real estate. She taught me how to run the numbers, how to look at things, and we've taught each other. She talks about this all the time. It doesn't take a rocket science to learn commercial real estate actually. I didn't believe that until I got into it. What is difficult is the way that the system is set up, and people have heard of redlining. And so I wanted to be able to basically say, I want to own a building in my community and create a space for other folks like me, or people that want to rent from someone who looks like them or comes where they come from. I want to be able to do that, and her and a host of people have been helping me do that. And so it's a 68,000 square foot commercial real estate property, $5.5 million, and we're just moving along, and it's so exciting. It's so stressful and so amazing all at the same time.

Phil Wagner

That's fantastic. Congratulations.

Jesse Ross

Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Just a magnificent accomplishment. Jesse, it's such a privilege to speak to you. We have had a great conversation on cultural self-awareness. Before we go, tell us what's next for you. Like, you've got this property, you're doing the work, you're doing community engagement work, you continue to consult and coach. What's next for you?

Jesse Ross

Yeah, so after we get the building, there's a community gathering space inside the building that I'm going to kind of revitalize and turn into just a space for people to use, right? Birthday parties, quinceaneras, wedding receptions, kind of all over so that people can get into the space and, of course, inviting people into the space. And honestly, I love doing these. I love speaking, so that's never going to change, but now I have more kind of context and ammunition around the DEI conversation. So when companies say, what can we do? When I come and ask them questions. Now, I also have a vehicle that they can contribute to and actually build proximity in as well.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, put your money where your mouth is.

Jesse Ross

Exactly and come. Target. We're headquarters for most of the Fortune 500 companies, but they don't have relationships in those underserved or misunderpresented groups. And so I'm like, no, come on by. Be present, and let's build relationships with the folks that you say you care about.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Such a wonderful conversation. Jesse Ross, my friend, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a true pleasure.

Jesse Ross

Thank you. Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at Women & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• The intersection between the school system and families in relation to multi-lingual learning
• What is the role of parents and the school system when providing information on the DEI landscape
• Why teachers don't have time to establish authentic relationships with their students' families
• How should we think about community in the broader realm of DEI work
• How best to reconcile competing notions of community
• What are some "fossilized practices" within the educational system and how to address them
• What are the current realities of inequity in the educational system

Transcript

Katherine Barko-Alva

When you really love something, then you are vulnerable, then you're compassionate, then you're open.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome listeners to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work, the podcast where we center real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our approach to DEI in the world of work. I'm joined today by my friend and my colleague, Dr. Katherine Barko-Alba, who's an assistant professor and the director of the ESL Bilingual Education Program here at the William & Mary School of Education. As a bilingual scholar herself, her research agenda is rooted in classroom practices and explores how dual language bilingual education educators make sense of language in culturally and linguistically diverse k through twelve contexts. She's a passionate DEI advocate. She's actively involved at our university, in our community, across the state, in the nation, and she's just a rock star in the purest sense of the word. So it's a true honor to welcome my friend, my colleague.

Phil Wagner

Thank you for joining us today. So excited to chat with you here.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Muchisimas gracias, Phil. It's such an honor to join you today and have this conversation that. I think creating spaces where we can just figure out how this works in real life it's so crucial and significant, too. Yeah, I mean, today is my grandmother's birthday.

Phil Wagner

Happy birthday, Grandma.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Yes.

Phil Wagner

Happy birthday.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Excited to be doing it. En el día de mi abuela. So on the day of my grandmother.

Phil Wagner

Great shout out there. Look, you do so much, and I've tried to give a little bit of an appropriate bio, but why don't you, in your own words, tell our listeners a little bit more about who you are and what you do, what you study?

Katherine Barko-Alva

Well, let's see. So it sounds like a lot. I often say that, but it's all rooted in community and classroom work. I'm a teacher and I love writing, and I love researching, but my heart is in the classroom. I was an English learner, emerging bilingual multilingual learner. When my family and my parents, my sister, and I decided to move to the States, it was really difficult. Right. We had the privilege that we came in with green cards. We won the green card lottery. We don't know how that happened. I mean, it's a long story. We don't have the entire time. To make story short, we didn't even put for our paperwork. I think my godfather did it just to see.

Phil Wagner

Wow.

Katherine Barko-Alva

And to get it in the family. And then my mom's name got picked, but because of my mom was married to my dad, all of us got it. And I just wanted to put that out there because I work with populations who have to suffer through the whole immigration process, and it's not easy. And even though my family and I came with a green card, which facilitated so many things, it was still very difficult in terms of how to understand a school, the positionality of a school, how to navigate school. I came in when I was 15 years old. I spoke a little bit of English, but I also took French in high school. But while my first language was high in terms of language proficiency, I didn't have, quote-unquote, the English. And we're going to talk about that to take my SATs, ACT, the SSI. I remember the first book I was given was The Scarlet Letter. And I'm like, what am I going to do? I'm so used to making good grades. And I'm telling you this little story so that just to locate and emphasize how difficult it is for an immigrant family, for a multilingual family, to make sense of their space in school and how much support they need, but at the same time, how many resources our families bring to the table.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Katherine Barko-Alva

And that we're not capitalizing. So that's the work that I do. I try to make sense of language in classrooms and fantastic multilingual educators and how they perceive their roles as language and content area teachers in bilingual classrooms. Also, how we teach preservice teachers, how we teach in-service teachers, as well as how to bring our families into the fold. Right. How to break those barriers so that we're not just sitting around expecting our families to come into the school, but us reaching out and going into the communities and understand that resources our families bring to the curriculum.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I appreciate that you lead with that story from your own family. So we know that identities are groomed and developed in family systems and in educational systems, but I think we often just sort of situate those as two different silos. And in your work, you're kind of the perfect person to speak to this because your book looks specifically at equity in school and parent partnerships. So can you share a little bit more about how those systems interact in this space? I know there's a heavy DEI connection there, but can you speak to some of that work, perhaps?

Katherine Barko-Alva

It is, and this is, a work of love that it was created with my two fantastic colleagues, Dr. Socorro Herrera from Kansas State University and Dr. Lisa Porter from JMU. Lisa is a sociologist, Socorro educator, and also mentor and think about DEI representation. She was the first Latina professor that I met long after I graduated from my Ph.D. program. Well, I had a fantastic advisor and advisor and fantastic professors. I was so excited to meet another Latina Latina faculty member and the mentorship and the love. And when I say love is love because it's looking at our histories as K Twelve teachers, as members in family units, and the positionality of it and experiences in schools with families, with teachers, with students, and putting that together in this notion of authentic cariño from Venezuela Bartolomé, and then radical kinship.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I love that.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Gregory Boyd and thinking about working from the margins, right? The work of Bell Hooks and also Paulo Freire, and putting that together in vignettes, in theoretical frameworks to kind of uncover those fossilized practices that we have experienced in a school, break those barriers down, and again, hoping that our families become the center of our curriculum. So it's a transformative work in the sense of its not just teachers dictating what our students are learning, but it's a stepping back, being very humble, learning who our families are, learning who our students are, which biography during instruction, and let that dictate how we teach. How wonderful.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So I love that you nod to our friends Paulo and Bell, right? I mean, we're talking about parent and school interactions, and we look to Bell Hook's, Feminism is for Everybody, or Paulo Freire's, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Those very concepts.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Right. Like, we always go with Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Pedagogy of hope, pedagogy of love, and his open concientizaciónes is, like, what guide us and what should guide us.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. I think so often we think about the context of parent-school relations, sort of based on the narrative we see playing out in the media. Here in Virginia, we know that our last election for governor was very heavily impacted by the discourse of parental involvement in schooling. And I'm curious how your work, your insights, your research might help us better understand that relationship and the role that each of those systems play in developing well-rounded children, students, citizens.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Yes. So one of the things that comes to mind, and it's also informed by the work of Freire and all the greats, right? Is this notion of authentic reflection on both sides and authentic listening, I think, from a very humble place, being a teacher for so long and now in higher ed, we have forgotten that we need to listen to each other. There is no connection. Right. One of the items that I often reflect is the fact that we have put so much emphasis on the standardized testing, and teachers are up to here, and I know we're in a podcast, but up to your neck on demands, scores, meetings, paperwork, and then they don't have time to establish authentic relationships.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, yeah.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Families, there is no communication on who the teacher are, their positionalities, or where the families are coming from. So when there isn't that conversation, when there isn't trust, what's going to happen? You're going to have to see a rupture.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Right. And so I think looking at the literature and looking how we have envisioning, how we have shaped family engagement up to this point, and there are amazing people doing similar work is one of the main concerns, is that we're not talking to each other, meaning schools and families and their community. Right. We don't trust each other. There is huge lack of trust and just the lack of knowledge of what every single pillar is doing because you cannot teach the child if you don't have the support of the teacher. You don't know where the community is from. Then you don't understand what the family is coming from.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I love that. Trust. Yeah. This is about trust and active listening and creating space to maybe have uncomfortable conversations, but with some guardrails, may be right that we're all in this together, which is for the betterment of child.

Katherine Barko-Alva

It's not easy. Right. So these trainings they need to happen at the teacher preparation program, how do we get our preservice teachers to that point where they feel comfortable to engage with conversations with their families and then during in-services? So when they are in the classroom, they're working at their school level, the professional development of that nature is not happening. So we're asking a lot from teachers, we're asking a lot from parents, we're asking a lot from students, and we're not providing any structures of support. And I feel as though we're operating from a position of fear rather than authentic love. Because when you really love something, then you are vulnerable, then you're compassionate, then you're open to have those discussions.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's good.

Katherine Barko-Alva

And that's what we're missing.

Phil Wagner

That's so good. A lot of your work to that theme speaks of the importance of community. So can you offer any insights on how we should think about the importance of community just in the broader realm of DEI work? Right. Community informs so much of what you do. Any insights on community in this broader context?

Katherine Barko-Alva

Community is everything. We can't do the I work if we don't step back from a very humble, right this, notion of cultural humility from Tervalon and Garcia. If we're not listening to what the community has to say if we're not learning from the community. Right. Sometimes we have these overarching ideas of how DEI should look like in our structures, how it should look like in the classroom, how it should look like in general. But it's going to change, and it's going to vary according to the context. And the context is shaped and is born in the community with the good and the bad. Right. We're not romanticizing the idea of community, but that's what is born. That's what it emerges and as researchers and teachers, and practitioners. I think that's where we need to start. If we're thinking about curriculum, we shouldn't be in a room sitting right next to seven people who think like us and then hoping that that curriculum is going to teach this other sector of the population that sometimes we don't know anything about.

Phil Wagner

What do you do when two communities are in conflict with each other? Right. You might have a dominant community or an underrepresented or a stoically exploited community, and the values or the goals or what they're reaching for seem to be in conflict with each other. How do you reconcile competing notions of community?

Katherine Barko-Alva

Oh, my goodness. If I had the answer to that.

Phil Wagner

I know, right?

Katherine Barko-Alva

Right, if we had the answer to that but think about it. And I'm just going to share a little bit of my background. I was raised Catholic, but from a very liberal liberation theology, had a lot of connections with Jesuits, Franciscans, and amazing nuns, and plus my grandmother, who was the strongest woman, two grandmothers, but one of them was the strongest woman I've ever met. So a lot of my work is informed by that. And in this notion of dignity, we can have different perspectives, we can have different sets of knowledge, but it all boils down to the fact that I, Katherine, understand that you, Phil, you're a human being, and you have dignity, you're ascension being, and that brings dignity to your universe, right? So when I engage in conversation with you, that's my starting point. That's my initiation point. So I can't be mad, I can't attack you, I can't go after you because your dignity brings me compassion, brings me patience, and brings me vulnerability. Does that make sense?

Phil Wagner

It so does. And we've talked about it on this podcast before. I go back to dignity every single time. That's the sort of foundation for my own approach to DEI work. Donna Hicks work is just like wonderfully informative to me here. We even have another episode in season two about dignity as well. So no, I love that answer. Hard to do in practice, but as a North Star, really cannot serve you wrong. When you lead with dignity, you see the world through a completely different lens.

Katherine Barko-Alva

You know what? We may messed up like first times that we try to do it, and we try that approach. It's going to be difficult, but it does not mean that we shouldn't try, because what's the alternative? What is going on right now that we cannot even sit in a room and talk to each other? And also, once we have those parameters, we have to understand the historical backgrounds of populations which has been and are currently excluded. Right.

Phil Wagner

I want to look at some of the other facets of your work. One of the things that I love that you focus on are what you call fossilized practices in the educational system that devalue histories or contributions and, in some cases, just devalue people from historically underrepresented or minoritized backgrounds. Can you share on some of those fossilized practices and then your insights as a researcher on how we can better address them?

Katherine Barko-Alva

To the practice-level things that schools do? Right. And once again, it's not just Lisa, Socorro, and I talking about this. There's fantastic people doing this type of work too, but little things. It all comes back to the ground level. Daughter father dances, for instance, or I know they have donuts with dad, right? Things like that that are basically excluding families who look different, who have different structures. I often ask, look around your PTA and then look at your student population. What voices are being represented? What voices are being left out? Look at your curriculum. And right now in Virginia, this is very difficult to my preservice teachers, in-service teachers, and I'm going to keep saying it. Look at your classroom library. What stories is that library telling? What stories is it not telling? And those are the fossilized practices of that notion. And I think you've heard it before. We've always done it this way. Right? We've always had the parent-teacher night, which is probably 06:00, without thinking that parents may have two jobs, without thinking that parents may not speak the language of the dominant culture. Without thinking that parents may not have transportation, without thinking that our children may not live with their parents. Could be unaccompanied minors that are here with uncle, aunt, or maybe their older siblings. Right? And granted, I'm not saying that there is this evil system that is operating like this to keep people out because I know how overworked the system is in K-12, and teachers are doing their best with very little resources. But what if we shift? What if we understand that that hasn't worked? And now transformation, talking about Freire and critical pedagogy transformation, needs to happen. And breaking those fossilized practices and, instead of expecting the community to come into the school, letting the school go into the community and live in community.

Phil Wagner

I really appreciate that framing, because what you do is you strike a balance and you don't overly romanticize what that educational system is there to do, but you really reveal the stakes. I think of, again, so much of our identity is developed in those systems and in those places. You look at inequity in the educational system and we know that the inequities that we deserve I'm sorry, the inequities that we observe there we go, in that space, those have felt consequences.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Inequities that we allow, too. Right?

Phil Wagner

Allow, yeah, that's good.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Yeah, without even thinking of it like we see it, it's there, and then we don't do anything to it. So I often say reflection, reflection, and then action, action, and action.

Phil Wagner

So if you're like me and you have two kids in the public school system, and it looks like everybody's being treated equally, you might think, I mean, haven't we addressed this? We're past inequities. There's lunch programs, breakfast programs. Can you speak as a researcher in this space on some of the current realities of inequity in the educational system and maybe why that's a current issue that we should really be or a pressing issue that we should really be really laser-focused on?

Katherine Barko-Alva

So going back to your examples of lunch programs, right? Because that's one of the things that I would do for my students. I would fill out that form if you don't have access to language. And access to language is an issue of linguistic equity and inclusion. Right. Parents are not able to fill out that form. Just right there and then having somebody on staff and because my work is in multilingualism, having somebody on the staff who can sit with the parent and say, this is how we're going to do it, and this is how you fill it out, like teaching. That is a game changer. Right. And if we know that this particular form is no longer working or meeting the needs of our families, why do we keep it? And sometimes people are going to be, oh, but we have it translated in five or six different languages. A lot of our parents have other types of literacy, not necessarily the literacy that is going to be represented in that form.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Right, I'm just giving you a very good example of some of the things that we see in the classroom. The fact that and my husband has a Ph.D. in science education, too, and he used to work in a Florida school, public school, and we would always talked about, you just have to drive, say, 4 miles, and you see a completely different infrastructure, access to books, lab material for public education. And this is the work of Kozol, right? Kozol talks about this from one group of students who look a very particular way who sound a very particular way as opposed to the other group of students. So I truly believe in public education. I'm a product of public education back in Peru and then here in the United States, but not in that level. To that level, not everybody's being treated in equitable ways.

Phil Wagner

And it seems to me, then, that also puts an undue amount of emotional labor or extra labor on bilingual educators. Right. I mean, so you're sitting there in addition to your day-to-day duties, then working with parents. That definitely is then a labor of love. It's above and beyond the expected sort of line of duty. Right.

Katherine Barko-Alva

And up until now, I often joke around like everybody in the community has my phone, and I get phone calls from parents. Right. I'm a professor at William & Mary, but I get phone calls from parents about bus schedules or getting into programs, and I often tell them like I may not have the answers because I'm not directly in the school system, but I don't know. I know the person that I can reach out. Right. And I can be a language bridge, but it comes back to my family. Somebody did that for them.

Phil Wagner

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Because I was basically told in a very kind way that I was never going to be able to go to college or university because I didn't speak English and that they couldn't help me. Right. And the entire reason for my parents to come to the States was so that my sister and I would be safe, would be alive, and we could go on to college. That was it. And so I remember those days. I lived those days. And every time I encounter our communities, I work from that perspective, right, which is very powerful because those are the voices, those are the narratives of thousands and thousands of people who come to this country just to work and just like my parents did.

Phil Wagner

I love that. I love that. Starting and ending with your story here, I think, is just so profound. It just keeps the main thing, the main thing. I have one final question for you, and it's pie in the sky. It's heady. One of the things I really appreciate about this podcast is it's a vehicle to just share different perspectives with our listeners, many leaders within organizations, but just differing perspectives. You are a researcher who has done research on a very specific aspect of inclusion and community. And I'm wondering if you can just provide any insight from your lens, from your perspective, insights to our listeners on how they can truly make the world and the world of work a more just, equitable, and inclusive place for all.

Katherine Barko-Alva

And I think I've touched upon with our conversation a little bit of those themes throughout. Right? But I truly believe there is a lack of conversation and lack of communication between policymakers, researchers, and then practitioners, at least in K-12 settings, or the policy is not translating in the way that it's supposed to be back to the classroom. So once again, if we were to operate from a space of vulnerability and humbleness, understanding that we don't have all the answers and that those conversations have to be ongoing, even when policy has been implemented, we have to go back and evaluate to see if it makes sense or not and if it's making sense for the populations that those policies are meant to serve. Right? We often don't do that and then seek those answers through collaboration in classrooms. And when I give talks, I talk about the three big C's, right? Collaboration, communication, and compassion. And that should guide our work because that's going to lead to those answers. Identify and create spaces where we know and we are able to say these are the voices that are being silent and not only how to include them but how to highlight those voices. Because for the longest time, those narratives have been excluded. Listening to others con el cuerpo entero, which means with your entire body, because what do we do when we engage in conversation? And this is from my sociolinguistic background. My students are like, well, we're often thinking about what we're going to say, which means that we're not really listening to our partner, right? So I often tell them if you're going to be a language teacher, you have to listen with your entire body. We have four language skills listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The ones that in the classroom we often don't practice is the output, which is the speaking part, and then the listening component.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Katherine Barko-Alva

You have to train your ear. Right. But in my mind, when I say escuchar con el cuerpo entero or listening con el cuerpo entero is your entire soul comes into those conversations. And I'm not going to get tired of doing this. Everything that we do, we have to do it from a point of hope and compassion. And this is taking Friere's work and not hope that it feels like, oh, qué lindo, like go inside. No, but hope, understanding that there are several things that we don't know and how are we going to get to the next level where we learn those things and we can keep moving forward. Right. And we can take reflection. So it's this idea of concientización or concientization, too.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. I love that. Bringing your whole soul into everything that you do. I look at you, and I see that's what you do. You bring your whole soul into everything that you do, every conversation. I love it. I really appreciate the soul behind what you do and the fact that you've given up your time to speak with us today. Katherine, my friend, thank you for a great conversation and for sharing more about your work. Always a privilege to speak to you, but particularly here. Thank you so much.

Katherine Barko-Alva

Gracias. You all have a good, good afternoon.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at Women & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• How Devon found her way into DEI work
• How standards of professionalism might disenfranchise historically underrepresented workers
• What happens when one does not go to work as their authentic self
• What the role of hair is as an identity element
• How the Crown Act protects workers
• The societal hypocrisies between bald men and bald women
• How the Oscars Slap elevated the awareness of alopecia
• The cost of maintaining "professional" hair for African American women
• Why it's a dignity violation to touch someone's hair
• Why professionalism codes are DEI matters

Transcript

Devon Peterika

I remember, and probably about last month, someone came up to me and said, can I just rub your head? I said no.

Phil Wagner

No.

Devon Peterika

Why is that even something that you want to do? Like, that's just freaky, like, ugh.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to another episode of Diversity Goes to Work, the podcast where we center real human lived experiences that help us shape and define effective DEI leadership. I'm joined today by Devon Peterika, who is a dynamic and accomplished HR professional with over 20 years of work in HR and leadership in the DEI space. Devon has a multifaceted background in HR at a variety of institutions of higher ed, and she currently serves as a diversity and inclusion leader in the oil and gas industry. What I love most about Devon's work is that she advances DEI work through very intentional and very specific organizational and HR strategies. But Devon also has a great personal perspective on DEI, which I know we'll talk a little bit about today. I'm so excited to host her here.

Phil Wagner

Devon, my friend, thank you for joining us. I'm sure that I've botched your background in some way. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and maybe a little bit about how you've found your way into DE&I work?

Devon Peterika

Absolutely. It's funny because when you hear your background ran off, you're like, is that me?

Phil Wagner

That's you. That's you.

Devon Peterika

So I actually fell accidentally into human resources many moons ago because my bachelor is in arts administration, and I have a minor in dance. And then I realized, yo, this don't pay the bills.

Phil Wagner

Been there.

Devon Peterika

And unless you're in New York or California, but guess what? The cost of living there. I'm like, oh, my. So I shifted my career over into HR leadership. I got my masters in HR leadership and the roles that I kept getting kept expanding. So, like regional territory, like Southport, it started, then it was like up the coast and the full east coast, and then multi countries and blah, blah, blah. I've really had favor in this space. I guess you can say. And then from there, when I had my little guy, he'll be seven in a couple of weeks, I moved back to Kentucky to be close to family. And in Kentucky, there's no big organization, primarily higher education. And so that's really when I kind of got my feet wet in the higher ed space. And there I was really advancing into this for disciplines in human resource. I was leading the office at this particular institution, and it was just kind of exhausting, almost because with my personality, I feel like everyone was like, oh, Devin, you can manage this employee relations. I'm like, yo, that's not my job. But it was like, you can disarm people so easily. Yeah, that's great, but it's exhausting. I really want to finesse in other areas. And I was trying to find a space that I was more proactive than reactive. And so I got a job at it was actually Maria College, and I saw a position for Title Nine, and it was a D&I position. I was like. I think I like it. And so I didn't even know anything about it. Started doing research on it, and I applied. Didn't get the job. However, in the midst of that, I was actually someone reached out to me for a Frontier Nursing University, where I was able to be the Assistant Director as the diversity, equity, and inclusion role there. And it's funny because the HR experience really fed into the needs that I needed for the D&I space because kind of the HR kind of facilitates some of the movements around the cultural awareness, cultural adjustments, and all that great and all changes. And, long story short, I'm big on development. I don't believe that D&I could be implemented based on lived experience only. So I got my certification as a diversity professional. And then another organization was like, hey, I see you. And they tapped me on the shoulder, and I accepted the role. And then, I had the opportunity to support several countries, US, Canada, and Latin America. Love what I do, love the space. And I truly feel like I am working in the purpose and the calling for my personal life.

Phil Wagner

I love so much of that. And you speak to attention that I think is so difficult in the DEI space, which is lived experience matters. It informs our perspective. It shapes the lens, but it alone is not enough to drive change. And so I love how you're able to speak to that. And I think it's perfect for where we're planning to go today. So what I want to talk about is our sense and sensibilities surrounding professionalism and professionalism standards in the world of work. And I think, as an HR professional, you particularly are in a perfect position to help us contextualize that conversation. So I'm wondering, can we unpack that term just a little bit today and maybe dismantle perhaps some of the ways in which our standards of professionalism might disenfranchise historically underrepresented or minoritized workers or applicants? So let's unpack this professionalism idea. Tell me from an HR perspective who's DEI-minded how you grapple with that term.

Devon Peterika

I struggled with the term personally because one of the things that I've learned in HR is that I flourish in the jobs that I do. I do my job well. But I had so many people tell me, across the path of my life and my career path, that I need to suppress my personality or do this. And I have fully embraced. I am an extrovert with an extra dose.

Phil Wagner

Same good company.

Devon Peterika

And I'm just like, what I'm not going to do is minimize who I am to make someone else feel comfortable. And I've always said I am not the traditional HR person, and when I even go into interviews now, I'm just like, I'm not so know what you're getting upfront. But I feel like the term professionalism is a coined phrase to keep people in this comfortable box for others that manage the world in which we live, which are unfortunately white males and females. And it's not to say anything mean or nasty about it, but it's just the fact that they are usually the ones primarily in leadership. And so it's like to make them feel, oh, this is how you're supposed to speak, this is nah, that's not me. And if you want a diverse perspective or people to be their authentic self, you need to allow them to be that. And research actually shows that if you do not come to work as your authentic self, you actually minimize your creativity. You create your flow of work, your productivity. And it's like, so why not allow people to be their authentic self? And I'm not saying let people come in like everything's hanging out and showing and tell hanging out. I'm not saying that. I'm saying allow people to express themselves the way they do, and you figure out and try to make it palatable for you.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Devon Peterika

How about you adjust for them?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, somebody once told me that if you think about the box is built for white people, and if you look at how a box is drawn, it's often a big white square with black lines at the margins. And I'm always like, oh yeah, I think that's profound. And so our very ideas of professionalism, I think in that sense, the box is sort of built-in those very Eurocentric or thin-centric ways that are, I think, problematic. One of the things that I was really hoping we might get into today because I know this is something you have spoken to pretty extensively is on the conversation of hair. And it's not a conversation we've had in-depth on this podcast, but I teach a variety of courses in DEI leadership in organizations, and this comes up pretty significantly, and I'm really kind of doubly removed from this conversation. I'm a white guy, and I am as bald as you can imagine. But the discourse on natural hair particularly has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. The Crown Act really helped ensure a discrimination-free environment based on natural hair. Can you speak to the role of hair as an HR professional, as an identity element, and how it might be something that we should better factor into our diversity work?

Devon Peterika

Well, the funny thing is that people, this is like a touchy topic to me again, personal experience, because, well, your listeners don't know, but I am bald. I have alopecia, and I decided to go ahead and shave my hair completely bald just because I was tired of hiding the baldness. And it was almost bringing up insecurities because I was always weird is the space showing or whatever. And people have a tendency to say you should wear your hair like this or wear hair, having no idea the cost that it takes to maintain that, knowing what it does to the damage of your own hair, and just so many dynamics to satisfy you. Why? And it's like, my thing is, what does hair have to do with the productivity of my work?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Devon Peterika

And the thing that and I love the crown act so much, and it's unfortunate that we even have to have something like that to say, hey, people need to be able to rock their hair the way they desire, because some even applies to cultural differences, and people don't even take that into consideration. My son is half Samoan, so they identify him as afakasi because he's half Samoan and half African American. I allow his hair to grow long because, in their culture, I believe it's age 15 is the time that they kind of cut it off and allow it to grow. Well, a lot of people like, oh, he looks like a girl. Why don't you cut it off? Why don't you allow people to connect with their culture the way of this? When we came over here from slavery and all that? We were so disconnected from our culture on so many different levels. It's like, let us reconnect and be great.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Devon Peterika

And that's the frustrating piece for me. But when it comes to hair in the workplace, I feel like it's another mechanism for people to just control the way you speak, the way you talk, the way you look, and all these aspects, it's like, stop. And it wears me down when people try to touch your hair because they're so curious. I'm not a snippet. I'm not a dog.

Phil Wagner

I want to talk about all there's, like, 17 things you just brought up, and I'm like, I want to talk about all of these. So I'm going to talk about touching. I want to talk about cost of hair treatments. I want to talk about natural hair, which we kind of just did. And if you're willing, I want to talk about alopecia. I mean, this is kind of like a significant cultural time to talk about these things. We're just a few months out from Will and Jada and Chris, and that has shaped, I think, a lot of white discourse on alopecia. Let's be honest. Not a lot of white folks sort of think about alopecia in their day-to-day lives particularly. So let's start there. You have such an impactful story. You've shared that story openly on Instagram, and it's one of such empowerment and dignity, and I love it. So give me a perspective on alopecia and maybe the cultural moment your willing to talk about and contextualize alopecia as part of DEI work.

Devon Peterika

Well, alopecia there is three main types of alopecia. Alopecia, I can't pronounce it. A-R-E-A-T-A I want to say it's like areata. And that's the form that I have, which are bald patches. Then there's alopecia totalis, which is like above your head, there's no hair. So maybe your eyebrows, your eyelashes. And then alopecia universalis, which is you ain't got no hair nowhere. There's three different types when it comes to alopecia, especially with the treatment. Sometimes, it can be exhausting. It could be, I don't want to say degrading because I've had them take pieces of my head out trying to examine it. I've had steroid shots in my head, and it's like it's exhausting. And it's like to fit the mold of who?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Devon Peterika

Who am I trying to do this for? And Phil, if you knew how much my hair bill was, my husband's going to be happy I'm bald now when I get married. But alopecia is just let me tell you a quick story. I was at this one particular organization. I won't name them. And it was actually the time that I decided I'm going to shave it all off. Like I'm tired. I'm over it. And for me, it was so freeing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Devon Peterika

But what's so funny was about so many other people. So from a personal aspect, I had so many people in my DMs and on Facebook when I posted my first picture asked me if I was a lesbian now. I didn't know my hair had to do with my sexuality, and asked me if I am having a nervous breakdown and I'm not Britney Spears having a moment. They were asking me if I had cancer. It was, so are you serious? So people's perspective just went out the window.

Phil Wagner

So limiting. It's a haircut. It's a hairstyle. Wow.

Devon Peterika

It had to be a root cause to whatever you're going through.

Phil Wagner

It had to make sense in their minds.

Devon Peterika

Exactly. Without asking. That was the thing that was challenging for me. And in the workplace, my supervisor at the time said she knew I was trying to progress just in general in this space. And she said people are likely not to take you seriously because you decided to shave your head.

Phil Wagner

No kidding.

Devon Peterika

Not knowing the financial, the emotional toll that I had gone through to get to this place. Are you serious?

Phil Wagner

And again, I'm a bald white guy navigating the world. I got to tell you. Nobody's ever talked about my hair being a barrier to effective leadership or change management. So, I mean, there's multiple hypocrisies, and just ironies slow baked into that sentiment.

Devon Peterika

Yeah. So I like Criminal Minds, and the reason I like Criminal Minds because I want to know the why behind the why, but nobody wants to take the time to understand, and I believe that the true issue in our world today and this is the need for D&I is because there needs to be cultural awareness and cultural competency. But in order to do that, I believe relationship is needed.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Devon Peterika

I'm not saying you got to be best friends, but I need to have some level of relationship or vulnerability to say, I don't know anything about this space. Can you tell me a little bit about it? Now, I'm not saying it's my role to educate you and bear the burden for you, but at least to shine some light or some direction for you to get guidance on your own. But people don't want to do that.

Phil Wagner

And it's a call for true and authentic relational development because it's not, hey, let's get into relationships so you can be my teacher mentor on black hair issues. Right? It's, hey, let's come into community together because I think you're a great person. I think we share a values framework. And guess what? The more we go to lunch, the more we talk, the more we have casual conversations, the more we become more vulnerable and deepen relational development. Peel back the layers of the onion. The more I'm just going to naturally learn through sort of osmosis, through just sort of like, I care about what's happening in your life. This is meaningful to you. You're not teaching me anything. We've just got community, and through community comes greater understandings. I think that's a profound recipe for how to do that in a healthy way with not exploiting the knowledge or lived experiences of other folks.

Devon Peterika

Yes, absolutely. I totally agree.

Phil Wagner

So let's talk about Will, Chris, and Jada. I mean, you talk about raising awareness. I don't know that anything has raised awareness for alopecia or the cause of alopecia or just recognition that this is a thing that exists in a very impactful and high-profile way. Did that help? Did that hurt? Do you not want to comment? I know you're not a social.

Devon Peterika

No, you know, I got comments today.

Phil Wagner

All right.

Devon Peterika

I'm on your podcast. I'm ready to rock it out. There's a challenging piece with the Will and Jada situation, and then I'll talk about how I feel like it impacts them. The thing that pisses me off so bad. Yes, I said, pisses off. Me off.

Phil Wagner

No limits here. You know that.

Devon Peterika

Is the fact that you heard more people talk about violence when it came to Will getting up and slapping Chris, and I'm not saying it's right, wrong, or indifferent, but from an ethnic background, I feel like a lot of the black people were like, yo, this could have happened at a barbecue. You talk about somebody's people, hey, you're going to get smacked. So we were like, oh, dang, that happened in public, in front of company. But I felt like our white counterparts were like, oh, my God, the violence. But where was you alls asses at with all this social injustice? When all these black boys were getting shot by police? Where were you all at when this little boy crossed state lines with a gun that he ordered online, and then where was you all talking about the violence then? And then they tried and then suspended Will from the award. Again, where I just feel like there's such hypocrisy. You want to talk out when it's convenient for you.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, there's so much, and I don't feel qualified to talk about every aspect because it's not my space. But I think there's so much that we can learn from that interaction. And one of the poignant notes to me is the erasure of Jada in that conversation, too, of how most impacted by that dignity violation and the person least talked about. It came down to the act of violence, not so much even just, oh, this is playing out at her expense in front of a very public audience.

Devon Peterika

One of the things that when it came to the situation because someone asked me was like, how do you feel about it? And I was like, Well, alopecia is very sensitive for everybody. And again, everyone's unique difference because I embraced it. And now, granted, I started developing alopecia when I was pregnant with my daughter, and Destiny is now 21. She's going to be mad because I told her age, but literally, it took me almost 18 years to finally say, you know what? And I love this look now, you know what I'm saying? I feel bold. I feel courageous. I feel like I feel sexy, you know, the whole nine. But everybody is not in that place, and we must honor and respect where they are at in that journey.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Devon Peterika

Even though Jada wasn't, because everybody was like, oh, it's no big deal, and whatever. And I don't know how Jada feels about it. I don't know because I don't know Jada. I would love to meet her one day.

Phil Wagner

You and me both. Yeah. But I think that's an important point, too, is to not assume that these experiences are monolithic. You've spoken to some of the issues that you have faced in sort of coming out with alopecia, for lack of a better term. Right? Not everyone is in a place where they are resilient enough or capable to do that. So I think this is about opening up space for people to be their full, authentic self, even if it doesn't make sense to how you think about how authentic self should play out. It's maybe not our business to do. With alopecia, let's go back to the natural hair conversation because I think this is something that I work with grad students. I work with MBA students and Masters of Accounting students, and undergraduate students. And particularly, my female black students have an experience that they often share with so many others in the class that never think about it, which is just the cost. I mean, the profound economic impact to their paycheck that it takes to align to professional ideas of hair in the workplace. Can you enlighten our listeners on

Devon Peterika

Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

is it really that costly, Devon?

Devon Peterika

Oh, it's expensive.

Phil Wagner

Talk to us about it.

Devon Peterika

Like I told you, my husband, my new husband, when I get married again, will be happy. So for me, I did hair weaves, and this was before and after alopecia. My hair could cost anywhere between $600, and this was hair and installation, so it could cost anywhere between $600 to $1,200 a session. That would last me maybe about four to six weeks, depending on how I maintained it. A lot of times, I did kind of go on the higher end and wanted human hair because I want it to last longer. I wanted to be able to curl it, like whatever. Because if you get authentic hair, yes, it is cheaper, but you put a curling iron to it, it's going to melt. And then if you're looking at just natural hair, where you're taking the natural coils or different curl patterns from the hair, and then straightening their form, depending on how the length is, depending on the process, that could be a 200, 300 session fee, depending on what city you're in. In bigger cities, it costs a whole lot more money. And on top of that, you tip them. You know what I'm saying?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, for service.

Devon Peterika

You want to make sure yes because you want to make sure they take you back. And then if you're getting braids, braids take about okay. I used to get micro braids. My booty would hurt so bad it would take about twelve-plus hours to get it done. And I want to say I paid probably about 80 to 100 something bucks for the hair itself, and then paid about 200 to get it done. My girlfriend just got goddess locks. Goddess locks. Oh my God, they're so gorgeous. I overheard the fee, and I was like, you'll make me want to grow hair just to get my goddess locks. But it was like $800. It is financially an investment to look great.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Devon Peterika

Go ahead.

Phil Wagner

Well, and to straighten, too. And I want to be very clear, no shame. You all do what you want to do with your hair. You do what you want to do. People like different things. People prefer different things. So this is not to say anything is wrong. We're not creating rules here. But for those that choose to straighten hair through chemical means, can you speak to that process? That also takes time. It takes money. It can be risky. It's a risky endeavor in some places. Am I incorrect in my framing here?

Devon Peterika

Absolutely. And that's why a lot of people stay in natural form because a lot of times and again, it can be up in the hundreds of dollars to get your hair straightened in general. Whether it's flat iron, whether it's if I forgot what they call this, it's like some type of blow drying out that actually stresses your hair out, and it can cause it to thin out and burn the follicles. So we're basically damaging our hair to satisfy everybody else. But it can range from anywhere between two to $500 easy, depending on where you're located. I live in Florida, so imagine.

Phil Wagner

And then the humidity, because I know I was in Florida for many years too.

Devon Peterika

Yeah, as soon as you walk outside, it's just into an Afro. Like you all wonder why we don't go swimming. I bet you don't get my hair wet because of the investment and time that it costs to get it done. It costs a pretty penny for us to get our hair done. And a lot of times, again, a lot of my friends that have decided to go natural is to make sure that they have healthy hair. They just want healthy hair because chemicals basically can burn it out. Let blow drying it out. What is that term? I keep forgetting what it's called, but my daughter got it once upon a time. And the best part is it messes up our curl pattern sometimes. If we took too much heat to it, it actually can adjust the curl pattern in certain parts of our hair. Who wants that?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think the anecdote is okay. Well, you don't want to pay for long braids. You don't want to pay for locks. You don't want to pay or risk the chemical treatment. Go natural. But in the world of work, natural hair is not the cure-all. Right. This is not always accepted as meeting a professional, and I like to think that things are changing. We've had a variety of guests who have talked about changing senses of professionalism codes, particularly the pandemic has changed a lot of what we think of as now a professional. But natural hair historically has not always just been widely accepted in the world of work, correct?

Devon Peterika

No, it has not. It is doing better, much or better. And I want to say I've only I say it's improved probably over the course of the past couple of years because of all the things that have been going on as it pertains to the D&I space, and even down to head wraps, because sometimes African Americans wear head wraps to keep their hair they'll have their hair braided underneath, put a head wrap on. And people like, oh, that's so unprofessional. We did it in Africa. Let us be great. So it's, like, very frustrating that we have to sit in this cookie-cutter model to be professional. And then my question is, who determines what professionalism was?

Phil Wagner

Who determines? Yeah. Who is that term most inclusive of? Who does it create the most latitude for? Not often workers of color or other historically underrepresented folks.

Devon Peterika

Yeah, absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Let's talk about touching. You talked about this earlier, particularly within the sentiment on natural hair. I read Phoebe Robinson's book. She had this great book called You Can't Touch My Hair and Other things I shouldn't have to explain. And again, you're here to educate us. We've sort of negotiated like we're going to talk about this. I want to be very clear. I'm never just going to go up to somebody and be like, hey, tell me about natural hair. But I appreciate you coming on to share, but can you speak to a little bit about that dignity violation of reaching into someone's personal space? You've had some stories on that as well. Talk to us about touching hair and maybe why we shouldn't do it. I like to think that's obvious, but I guess it's not.

Devon Peterika

But here's the best part. People will be willing to rub my bald head too.

Phil Wagner

No. Are you serious?

Devon Peterika

It's very dehumanizing.

Phil Wagner

Dehumanizing. Absolutely.

Devon Peterika

It is almost like I am a model that says I am not normal. Let me touch and see. Let me, and then it's like, you are entitled what you're entitled so the audacity.

Phil Wagner

It's like when people rub pregnant bellies, right? It's like, what are you doing?

Devon Peterika

But even that's her what. Can you ask? Hey, can I go? Can I rub? Okay. I understand. I'm excited. I see a baby belly. I won't rub if that's not what she desires because it's her body.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, yeah.

Devon Peterika

Like, who wants to be touched? And then to be petted on like a pet. Like, that wears me down. Because I remember, and probably about last month, someone came up to me and said, can I just rub your head? I said no.

Phil Wagner

No.

Devon Peterika

Why is that even something that you want to do that's just freaky, like, ugh. But even on hair, like no, go rub your dog.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Devon Peterika

Why do I have to satisfy your curiosity to be the experiment today? So you can satisfy, see what the texture is like? No. For me, I feel like it's a violation on so many different levels. And it's funny because usually, of course, it's white people because they don't have that texture of hair, because they're curious, and I get the innocence in their mind, but it's perceived as microaggression because you're treating me as if I am not normal or human.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, we don't pet other humans. That's not a practice that we do.

Devon Peterika

Say it again for the people.

Phil Wagner

I know, it's so true. Again, it reduces somebody to sort of like an art exhibit at best.

Devon Peterika

A dog.

Phil Wagner

A dog. It's so dehumanizing. And I think people just maybe don't think about it, but again, part of this is normalizing. Think about it. Think about it. Think about how your direct actions are contributing to the development of somebody's dignity and self-worth and or working against that. And I can find no formula where putting my fingers in your hair. I would never do that. But I can find no formula where that leads to you leaving that conversation, feeling better about yourself, having more dignity than you walked into that conversation with.

Devon Peterika

I've seen people be like, oh, my God, your hair is so gorgeous. You don't see us going up to white people. Okay, I'm not going to say never. I don't want to say never, but I have never in my life of 43 years seen a black person go up to a white person, like, can I touch your hair? Or just going or feeling I have the right to go and just touch their space. I've never seen that. And it's like, can you show us the same level of respect?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and hopefully, the pandemic has taught us, like, hey, maybe we don't need to be touching each other at all. That and me too, I think, are like, okay, maybe I'll just keep our hands to ourselves in general. But I think it's just a powerful reminder here of if you are white and navigating this space, it's not even white folks. It's just maybe people who don't have this hair experience. Raise the profile of your awareness. Do the digging again I mentioned on a previous episode. You've got access to Dr. Google. You can find information as to why this is not an acceptable social practice. You can find information about the cost, the burden, the ways in which this does put undue stress, particularly on black women, but also just sort of black and brown folks in general, to align. I mean, you can do that research yourself. So let's wrap this down a little bit, too. I want to talk about that standard of professionalism that we opened this conversation with, professionalism codes, hair codes, dress codes. As an HR practitioner, do you really see those as DEI issues? I mean, how can you give us some understanding on how DEI and HR might understand those issues in tandem? Does that make sense?

Devon Peterika

Yes. I feel like it definitely is a D&I issue, or I'm not going to say an issue. I'm going to say a D&I matter that probably will fall under our umbrella. And the reason being is because when it comes to professionalism, my thing is if it doesn't impact the productivity of the person's work, it doesn't matter to me. There was funny because I work for a global company, and someone told me the story that they were in another country. I can't remember what country they were in. The women wore a lot of sheer stuff, and they were like, oh, my God, she needs to cover up. She needs to whatever. You're not in America. You're in another country. And when they started talking about it, because they didn't go to the employee immediately, they realized it was a cultural thing. That's the thing. Assess your environment. Assess the culture. Don't go in there gun blazing, assuming people to take on the perspective of what you have. Is the girl doing the job? Are you tempted about her sheer shirt? Like, why are you bothered about her sheer shirt? Is she doing her work? You know what I'm saying? As long as she's not showing out places of her body that are her private parts, let her be great. That is my coin phrase, let them be great. Because a lot of times, when we say this is not professionalism, and it all goes down to cultural competency to me, and when we don't have relationship, and we lead by do what I say in this dominating manner, we won't get nowhere in this space. And I feel like it kind of aligns with HR because, in human resources, we are supposed to make sure that humans are effective in the workplace. And just what I wear and how my hair is, as long as it's presentable and I'm doing well at my job, I feel like the rest doesn't matter.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and I think that's just such a balanced framing, right? That, sure, there are standards it's fine to have. Like you said, you want everything hanging out everywhere. There are standards of propriety, but this is a much bigger conversation, and we have created nuances, and we've created rules, and we've created sort of unsaid structures that definitely disenfranchise certain folks. I think we have to step back and take a lens as to why that is and what purpose it serves. All right, so final question for you, my friend. As we end our conversation today, I always like to end by asking guests to share more on their suggestions for sort of creating organizational environments that are places where employees can truly survive and thrive. And I think that's key because a lot of workers are not even surviving. They are leaving in droves. We want to help address that, but also, like, create those environments where they can thrive. So can you speak directly to leaders, to managers, to executives on what they can do right here and right now to improve the world of work based on the conversation that we've had today?

Devon Peterika

I would say for especially the executive and senior leadership to take a beat and step back and think from a cultural competency standpoint and also get down in the trenches. What happens is, a lot of times, group executives and senior leaders, they come up with these theories of things they want to implement in the organization. Everything's fine, everything's fine. But then, as things cascade down, there begins to be bottlenecks. Whether it's inefficient processes, whether your front-line leader doesn't believe in the hype of what you're trying to do, they're not drinking the Kool-Aid of diversity, whatever, get from your C suite and get down in the trenches and see what your people are doing and saying. Don't do no formal survey. Go out in the field so they can see you, see that you care, and then say, what does this look like? Why is she over there? Seeming like she's disconnected from the rest of the group. It doesn't seem like we have a lot of ethnic people out here. I thought our data shows this, but oh, I realized that are only African American represent our entry-level positions. Go out and see what the actual work environment looks like instead of just looking at reports. That is my recommendation.

Phil Wagner

That's it. It all goes back to relationships.

Devon Peterika

Yes.

Phil Wagner

You can deepen those relationships. You're going to strengthen your organizational processes, and you're going to help make your DEI work more meaningful too. You're going to embed it throughout all parts of the organization, and it starts with such a personal commitment. Thank you for sharing so personally today, so vulnerably and openly. Thank you for your story, thank you for your work, and for your insights. It's been a great pleasure speaking to you, my friend. Thanks for a great conversation today.

Devon Peterika

Thank you for having me. I'm always excited to chat with you.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at Women & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What it means to move to the edge of your thinking
• How one can move their DEI work forward when faced with uncertainty
• How Everett's own experiences led to his writing of his book
• What are the best communication strategies when leading multiple types of people
• How corporate leaders see DEI work as both a problem and a solution
• What it means to build DEI infrastructure
• How to build DEI infrastructure in the absence of consistent frameworks across the world of work
• The difference between interior and exterior DEI practices
• What the role of imagination is when solving complex problems in the DEI space
• Why communication is so important when designing DEI architecture

Transcript

Everett Harper

The challenge would be, what are the small little pieces of infrastructure you can create? That doesn't have to be a big initiative. Often it's the small things, like how can we connect in an easy way with low lift that's sustainable and repeatable, that then builds culture over time.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome listeners to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work, the podcast where we center real human lived experiences in our pursuit of a more just and equitable organizational world of work. I'm joined today by Everett Harper. Everett is the CEO and co-founder of Truss, a human-centered software development company. It bears noting that Truss has been designated as an Ink Magazine 5000 fastest-growing company for the past two years. Everett is an alum of Stanford and Duke, the latter of which I take small issue with because I'm an alum of the University of Kansas. But we're going to let it slide. But we're here today because Everett's thought leadership has led to a new book released this spring called Move to the Edge, Declare It Center, which is a strategy guide for business leaders facing complex problems that require immediate decisions in the face of uncertain outcomes.

Phil Wagner

Everett, it's a pleasure to meet with you. I'm a fan of your work and delighted to chat with you today.

Everett Harper

Thank you. I really appreciate it. And you have no reason to take any issue since you have bragging rights for the year University with Kansas, so Rock Chalk Jayhawk, you all earned it.

Phil Wagner

Thank you. Rock Chalk Jayhawk, indeed. Look, let's jump right in. First and foremost, I love catchy titles, and your title is so catchy I've read your work. But for those that haven't, can you give us sort of the elevator pitch for Move to the Edge, Declare It Center?

Everett Harper

Yeah. So Move to the Edge Declared Center. Move to the Edge is about moving to the boundary of your knowledge and into the unknown. And the book talks about methods to help people make decisions through all that uncertainty. Declare It Center is the part that once you come up with an innovation or new strategy where people often fail is they don't put it into a system and make it repeatable and sustainable. So Declare It Center is taking those discoveries, creating systems so you can share, scale, and sustain the work. And that's particularly important for DEI.

Phil Wagner

So one of the things I thought about as I read the work is where does the most difficulty lie? And when we're thinking about DEI specifically, sometimes I think it's that movement piece. We like to think that it's sort of the infrastructure that gets in the way the most. But I think a lot of people look at the landscape of DEI, a lot of leaders who would call themselves inclusion oriented, and they say, oh my gosh, there is so much going on, I don't even know where to start, how to get in, what to do, how to move forward. Can you share any strategies that you might have for people who are who want to get in, who want to move but find themselves so paralyzed by fear or that unknown? Any insight from your work?

Everett Harper

Yeah, I would say there's probably two levels, and we can explore both if it's interesting. One is sort of the organizational level, the pragmatic level. What's the issue we're trying to address? Or what's the outcome you're looking for? And I feel like a lot of people forget to ask, what does it look like? Paint a vivid picture of what an outcome, a successful outcome, or a problem we're trying to avoid looks like that tends to narrow one's focus. And rather than saying, well, let's do DEI, it becomes, how do we have a leadership team that reflects the US population? What does it look like to design a product where we can reduce our blind spots by having more voices around the table? Those actually are outcomes that or questions you can ask. And then an outcome might look like, yeah, we want a product team that is comprised of these kinds of people. Now you've narrowed the problem. Now you've narrowed the solutions. So that's on the organizational side, briefly, on the personal side, where do you start? That's a really interesting question because I included, and I think, hopefully, it comes across in a business book. I include interior practices, the things where you have to develop your own self-awareness, find out where your blind spots are, understand your own reactions to stress and uncertainty. When you're talking about freezing, that's a really common problem. When people are faced with unknowns or I don't know the answer, and being able to sit with that and realize, oh, this is my reaction to uncertainty, and then be able to have strategies to move forward anyway, that is really the key to those interior practices, and both are important.

Phil Wagner

And I want to come to those interior practices, certainly in just a bit, because that occupies a significant part of your work. But I really first want to go back to its, like, in the intro section, right away in the preface of the book. I love good storytelling, and you drop us into a good story. You drop us into a tough conversation where you highlight an article by Ellen McGregor where she talks about the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and argues that when two black men are killed by police, one at a traffic stop in front of his four-year-old daughter. Employers must recognize that their employees, just like the rest of the country, are likely deeply affected.

Everett Harper

Yeah.

Phil Wagner

And then you talk about how this really hit you because you're the employer. Right. So you talk about how you occupy this strange position. You don't have a sign on your car, you say, that says, don't shoot, I'm a CEO. Can you talk about how your own experiences have sort of led to or informed this work?

Everett Harper

Yeah, I wanted to lead with that story because I wanted people to hear that it's both a business book and a personal book. And with this particular issue in particular, they're intertwined, and by telling a story, hopefully, brought people into that space. For me, as a black founder or black CEO, I think where I would go with that is I came to Silicon Valley in 1996, and you could probably put all the black founders and CEOs at a small dinner table, and that's it. It wasn't the image of Silicon Valley. And so it reinforced the kind of growing up experience of being the only one in this class or the only one in sports or the only one in this playing flute. Right, whatever. And eventually, what became a survival tactic just to navigate that became a skill. How do I understand what is in the room? And then it became an insight, wait a minute. I can see the assumptions that people who are in the center make about any given situation by being on the edge, whether it's being a CEO in the Silicon Valley in 1996 or being a CEO actually now too. And this is for everybody in some ways. It's not about being a black CEO. It just gave me an insight that the innovators and the people who are thinking around the corner, and the people who can solve problems are often those who are not at the center. They're the people on the edge and looking for ways to solve problems or be included in a different way. So I think that's probably the headline for me.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I really appreciate that, and I think a little bit more about how that might open up conversation on the impetus to move. Right. For me, I'm a qualitative researcher. I'm a communications guy. I really prioritize lived experiences. That moves me. We also live in a world that prioritizes data-driven decision-making. And so I'm wondering, from your perspective back to that impetus to move, do you find that one of those is more beneficial, particularly in the DEI space, than the other?

Everett Harper

One of which?

Phil Wagner

So storytelling and or data?

Everett Harper

Yeah. So I'm going to try my best to cite this well, but there's a woman named Christina Harbridge who wrote this book called Swayed, and she's been really informative for me about how to communicate these types of issues. And I'm very aware of talking to communications expert. So you might say, Ah, that's nothing. But here's the way I frame it, that there are people who are motivated by a couple of different things. Some are motivated by we like the team. Some are motivated by process. Tell me what is next, and then I can hear what you're saying. Some are motivated by purpose. What's the higher meaning of this? And others are motivated by goals. Tell me where we're trying to get to it. I'll just nail it. Every communication I'm making, my best communications address all four. So whether it's a story or an annotation, if I can weave in each part of that, then that's where I try and go. That's where I'm trying to drop impetus into the people who are listening. So obviously, the communication stuff, know your audience. What is my outcome I'm trying to get? What am I trying to do? But then the next level is knowing that everybody hears something different. And if I do it well, they will see themselves in my communication. And even if they're totally motivated by a different thing than the next person sitting next to them.

Phil Wagner

I think that's a wonderful framing, and it's not lost on me that that's a great way to not oversimplify and not overcomplicate, to find balance and be multiple things to multiple people without sacrificing your values, without sacrificing or conceding on the need at hand. You're just being strategic here in how you frame the problem, how you frame the solution, how you frame the outcomes. Let's talk a little bit about problem formation here. So as I read the book, one of the things I'm trying to figure out is a little bit how to reconcile notions of diversity as a solution or a benefit because it's often positioned that way, right? There's a benefit to having diverse people in groups and teams. Diversity is a benefit for organizations. Inclusive cultures offer benefits to employees. So there's this diversity as solution, but then there's sort of this guiding sentiment of diversity as a problem. There are problems related to diversity and equity and inclusion in the world of work that we've got to fix. So what I'm trying to do is better understand how corporate leaders see diversity as something that's highly beneficial in the solution or something that's sort of compliance anchored and a problem that needs to be fixed. Does your work give us any insight here as we think about the DEI enterprise? How do we see DEI as problem and or solution?

Everett Harper

Yeah, so that's a really interesting question. There's a lot of layers. I'll see if I can break it down a little bit because there's a lot of layers in there. There's a wide range of how corporate leaders in my experience address this and some address it well, some address it poorly. Let's just be frank. On the compliance side, this is where I think kind of the traditional older version of diversity, even coming out of EEOC, coming out of affirmative action, where the goals were, let's get as many people of color, let's get more women into positions, and it became a checkbox, right? We've hired somebody, so let's check that box. We are complying with the rules. The Rooney Rule in the NFL. Same sort of thing. We have interviewed a black candidate, but we also know that that's not the outcome. That's not the you haven't you've complied with the rule, but the rule has defined you defined the rule wrong, basically. And that's then the sort of emergence of inclusion started to come in, et cetera. So I also see enterprises focus on how do we become moral citizens in the world. It represents moral citizens in the world. So it's not necessarily a benefits at actually a third level. It's like, how are we representing us? I actually find that somewhat problematic too. Right? Let's put a commercial on, and then it's tone-deaf, and we can say all sorts of versions of that. Where I think it gets much more interesting is when people attach it to the business, attach it to the goals of the organization. I think I say in my book the reason why it's so important is if diversity is a side project and is disconnected with the mission of the organization, guess what happens when budgets get tight or a client decides to drop, or there's some other crisis. That side project becomes dismissed. The more that people can articulate this is important to our organization because we want these outcomes or because the operation of this business work best, or because we the amount of blind spots that we have in our business. Now, it becomes neither benefit, it becomes essential, crucial to the business, operational to the business. That's much more interesting, and for me, that's more sustainable. So instead of saying we have a D&I initiative, I can say we have cohorts in our recruiting. We have a process in our recruiting where we can measure every single cohort for new positions. And the people who are in charge of that is the people who are dealing with on a daily basis our recruiting team and our hiring team. And then, we have systems to make sure that we can be visible about the results. So it just becomes part of operations, and that gets really interesting.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's what's interesting to me too. And you are somewhat of an infrastructurist. I mean, this is embedded throughout all of your work, right? So you talk about infrastructure in the book. There's not one, at least by my assessment, there's not one sort of DEI infrastructure. I mean, there are a variety of models, there's some good rubrics that we can use for organizational success, but there's not one guiding sort of infrastructure here. So how do you build an infrastructure framework in the absence of one consistent for DEI across organizations writ large?

Everett Harper

Yeah. So first little definition just for people listening what I mean, because infrastructure, it's not buildings and roads, it's not bridges, et cetera. It's really the interaction between people, technology, and systems. So the operations of a business, it's the interaction between them that's the infrastructure. So everything from repeatable processes like your weekly all hands all the way to your CRM are versions of infrastructure. And when you think about it that way, it becomes much more flexible to think, oh, this is how it relates to DEI. The reason I emphasize infrastructure is a lot of DEI work for a lot of folks, has a very compelling moral imperative, has a compelling social imperative, and that's awesome. And at the same time, it's exhausting. If all you're relying on is heroism. Heroism is not sustainable.

Phil Wagner

Say that again.

Everett Harper

Systems are sustainable. Right. And so the burnout that people are feeling, and it's very real, and I'm sure there's some nodding heads out there like, oh my God. The question I would then ask is, oh, wait, instead of carrying the burden yourself or with your team, how can you take that work and create an infrastructure that enables it to be systematized? What that then does is enable the work to be not carried by the heroism of a few but by the small lift of many so that it becomes almost trivial to your daily experience. And there's lots of different examples, but that's sort of, for me, the connection between building infrastructure and why it's so important for DEI.

Phil Wagner

That's excellent. I want to talk you mentioned earlier, you teed it up so well talking about interior practices, and you talk about two in the book, right? Exterior and interior. That's a really profound segment of your work. So can you explain or contextualize those perhaps within sort of the greater realm of DEI for our listeners? Because both are very important to that infrastructure.

Everett Harper

Sure. And I'm glad you pointed out because it was a deliberate choice to say interior and exterior are important. Exterior, for the purpose of this conversation, are the processes, the methods that you can use within your organization to implement DEI. So, for example, if you are doing recruiting and hiring and blind interviews, so you erase someone's name, that's a piece of infrastructure. That's an exterior practice that you use within your organization to help get to remove bias in your interviews. An interior practice, on the other hand, is that what you do for yourself, your own habits, your own practices. In some ways, it's your personal infrastructure. So you may have something that says, I'm going to remove bias in my interview, but then the interior practice is, am I biased? If I'm biased, where are my biases? How do I learn about them? If I have them? Am I working on them, or am I just reactive to them? And so that second piece, the interior practice, is really important because we often replicate the systems we're trying to eradicate if we're not self-aware about our own reactions to different things. And the general point in the book is around the unknowns and uncertainties. But for DEI, it's the unknowns and uncertainties of saying, do I really talk that much in a meeting when I hear women say that, wait a minute, in the room? I've said a particular point, and it only got recognized when another guy said the exact same point. Was I that person? Those questions start to get real interesting, and that's the interior practice, being aware and then being able to respond in the moment and practicing it.

Phil Wagner

Difficult question here. Does every leader have the ability to get to that place? I mean, I think of some of the obstacles that we encounter in the world of work-related DEI. I think it goes back to a profound lack of the ability to self-reflect. Does your work offer us any insight on how to motivate those who seem reticent to do that deep digging, that have that intellectual curiosity to sort of get there and ask those internal questions?

Everett Harper

Yeah. Oh, boy. There are a lot of different answers I could get in terms of motivating. One, I think that we have been trained, and I talk about this in the book, we've been trained to have the right answer. Like everybody, think about when you're in fourth grade, were you trained to raise your hand first, say the answer loudest, say it first. We've been trained that way. We weren't trained to ask the right question. We weren't trained to sit within this country. Trained to sit with. Are there other answers or other perspectives?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Everett Harper

Right. You get to being a leader, and you're all of a sudden faced with all sorts of different challenges, and you don't have the answer. Many leaders, that's a freeze moment. And we saw that in the pandemic. We saw that in remote work. We saw that in response to the killings of George Floyd and other things. And so you reach that point of not knowing, and you're not trained in that. And so the self-awareness to say, wait a minute, I don't know the answer is, for some leaders, the first time that they come in contact with, oh, what do I do now? I'm uncertain. I'm trained as a leader to know all the answers. So any leaders out there that hasn't had that moment, I'm going to side-eye you a little bit. So that's first, the motivation it's like, you're going to get there, so how do you deal with that? The second motivating thing is I am very deliberate about saying these are practices. So, for example, I've been meditating mindfulness meditation since 1992, so almost 25 years. And it's a practice. I was terrible at it at first, right? And I get better, and sometimes I regress, and so forth. But like any riding a bike, like any practice, you get better with repeated cycles, and you get trained and you get mentors and so forth. And then, eventually, you realize you have a body of work that I can rely on. So for me, meditation has been I can slow down when things are really intense. I can feel a sense of emotional distress or uncertainty, but then step back and say, Ah, that's uncertainty. It's not me. It's a feeling. And those feelings shift and change. Then I can start to pause and take a moment. So I'll give you a practical example for DEI. So one of the things as a CEO you realize that you should hold your tongue more often than not. One of our newer employees a couple of years ago, our first trans employee, came in and bravely said, within about a couple of weeks, hey, you know what? We don't have any pronouns. I would really appreciate and this person. They wrote up a diagram that said a proposal that said, I'd like to include our pronouns in all of our slack channels and on our zoom calls.

Phil Wagner

Wow.

Everett Harper

My initial reaction inside was, why are you doing that? It's going to make all our names too long. It's going to be clutter in our feeds. Right. But I recognized, oh, that's just my initial response. Let me take a pause and realize, wait a second. This is a new employee making a suggestion that works for them. Is there really any cost to that? No, this could be an experiment. Cool. That pause was critical. That's part of the practice. They decided to do it, and then people got on board, and I was like, okay, this is important to people. Great. I'm glad I was quiet. We implemented it easy. It was really helpful for folks. But here was the payoff. The next three people I interviewed because I used to do all the interviews. When I was the final interview, the next three people, unprompted, said, hey, and I really appreciate that you have your pronouns. I said, really? Why? Well, it's not my thing. It's not important necessary for me to have pronouns I'm he, him, or she her. But if you've created an environment that's comfortable for folks, who are they them? You've probably made an environment that's comfortable for me too, and my issues or in my challenges and my identity. And I sat back after the third one. I sat back and like, wow, I was completely wrong. I'm glad I paused, and I'm glad the practice of including and accepting, and creating an environment for people to make those suggestions paid off in ways that could not have possibly imagined.

Phil Wagner

I am so glad you went there because I think that's a perfect retelling of something you teed up earlier, which is that you can be multiple things to multiple people. That specific example has clear organizational outcomes, right? So you've got those recruits, those new hires, coming in and expressing appreciation, feeling plugged into the culture. That's great for the organization, but for those that are wrapped up in sort of that higher moral imperative, there's data on this, too, right? The Trevor Project did a study. It's like 40,000, folks. Those specific affirmative communication patterns decreased the intent to commit suicide by a significant amount. Right.

Everett Harper

Wow, wow.

Phil Wagner

So for organizations, great benefit for people getting life benefit. This can be multiple things to multiple people. Same practice, but speaks to multiple sort of different access points. I love that. And then I think too, thinking about self-reflection, your tale here of your immediate reaction, your pause, and then your reframing is important because I think often when we have those immediate reactions, either we don't vocalize them, shame ourselves for having them, when growth is something that I think we should prioritize here. So that, self-reflection also has a way of eventually giving you grace for yourself and then bringing about grace for others as they work through the stuff.

Everett Harper

Yeah, absolutely.

Phil Wagner

And this relates to something, one of my favorite parts of your book. It's kind of a small piece, but I loved it. I learned something new here was about imaginable cells. Do you remember that part of the book?

Everett Harper

Yeah, of course.

Phil Wagner

I have to be honest. I had no idea what those were. Can you talk a little bit about those and the role of imagination in solving complex problems in the DEI space?

Everett Harper

Yeah. So I'm glad you noted that. I wanted to put that little piece in. Also, just like a little mark in the book, a little pause in some ways. So for listeners, imaginal cells are cells within a caterpillar, and those cells are actually antigens to the caterpillar's existence. However, they also include all blueprints for making a butterfly. So, yes, this is another butterfly story, but I promise it's.

Phil Wagner

No, it's a good one.

Everett Harper

And the key is those imaginal cells, as antigens are in some ways not able to function. But what they do is try and link with each other. Once sufficient numbers of these imaginal cells link with each other. They form this network. That network then signals the caterpillar to go into chrysalis and dissolve completely into goop. You're now a mass of proteins. However, those imaginal cells take over. They are the architects. They reassemble all those proteins into the butterfly, and then the butterfly flies away. The metaphor for me of the imaginal cell is about it can be lonely sometimes to do DEI work in isolation. You could think that if you're an innovator, it can feel really for people who are in internal innovation teams. I've heard so many stories of feeling like no one understands what we're trying to do, and everybody attacks us because we're threatening to the established order. However, when you reach out and you do podcasts like this, and you create a network of people trying to make change, all of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute, we're onto something. We can support each other. So there's the network, and if there's sufficient people in that network who are saying, yes, let's try and make a change if you apply the right leverage, you could be the architects of something beautiful. You can be architects of something new. So for me, in some ways, it's less about imagination, except perhaps that you can imagine there are other people like you, but it's really about connection, it's about networks, and it's about being able to create massive change with small amounts of highly strategic action and with leverage. So that's why I like that story. And I forgot you can't do it without going through the goo. You can't do it without the messiness that comes with it. And it's not messy for everybody else. It's messy for you, too, right? So that's the thing.

Phil Wagner

That's so good. Our own president, Katherine Rowe, here at William & Mary a few months ago, was speaking to faculty and reminded all of us to not be held back by the fear of doing something not fully perfect in the DEI space.

Everett Harper

Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Be brave enough to do the right thing, to do the thing that advances our shared values and commitments in this space, and know that we're probably going to mess it up. We're going to go through the goo, as you say, and to give ourselves and others grace as we do that. And to me, I've never heard something that really just stuck with me of giving ourselves permission to go through that goo and know that it's messy. So that's good. I'm a communications guy, Everett, and so one of the things I really appreciate about your book is that it is about infrastructure, but it's also about the small things that build infrastructure. One of those things to me is always communication. You can tell a lot about an organization by the tenor of communication that exists within it. So you've got a few, like, communication activities.

Everett Harper

Yeah, sure.

Phil Wagner

What purpose do you sort of see interactions or those interactions serving in problem-solving? Can you tie together communication and problem-solving for us?

Everett Harper

Yeah, absolutely. So for context for the people who are listening, Truss, we're 130 people or so, and we've been primarily remote first for an entire decade. So we've developed a lot of these communication practices, in part because we have to solve the problem of how do we join our work. So there's lots going on with sort of doing the work, but smartly one of our employees decided, wait, but we have to make sure we stay connected also. And so they said, let's create a half an hour every Friday, and it's before our all-hands meeting for something called being humans together. And being humans together is optional. You can attend as much as you want. Anybody at any level can attend. And we started this when we were 20 people, and it still goes on. And it's basically you get on if there's one, if there's sufficient people, you go into breakout rooms, and the question might be, tell us a story about the thing that's behind you on your wall. Tell us the most boring, interesting story when you were 13. Tell us what movie character you wanted to be when you were five, and tell us your favorite dad jokes. The dad joke ones are crazy in terms of participation. But what it does is it's a piece of infrastructure. It is a regular, systematic way for people to plug in with very little effort. It's just half an hour. You can go when you want, but it creates a place where you can be silly, where you can find out more about the person behind. And that develops trust. And trust is really key to being able to have any organization. But particularly in a DEI frame, the challenge would be, what are the small little pieces of infrastructure you can create that doesn't have to be a big initiative? Often it's the small things, like, how can we connect in an easy way with low lift that's sustainable and repeatable, that then builds culture over time.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I love that. That human connection. Stephen Denning reminds us that analysis often excites the brain, but it doesn't offer a path to the heart. Right. So we've got to go to motivate and to drive change and to drive action. And so what I like about that being humans together thing is it centers humanity, centers dignity, it centers the why behind our DEI initiatives. That is what brings sustainability. So, final question for you today. Your work gives us a lot of insights, not just in DEI. I mean, we can apply the principles here to a litany of organizational problems, which is what I love about this. But I think specifically for DEI. There are just so many takeaways. So if we were to buy your book, which I hope all of our listeners will please do, it's a wonderful read, and we were to put those principles in action in the DEI space, what could you envision for our realities? What would come to fruition if we took your principles and applied them to DEI?

Everett Harper

I think the key would be, particularly for leaders, is something you referred to earlier. You don't have to be perfect. You have to step up, and you have to speak up. And you're going to say, I might mess up, but I'm going to acknowledge that this is in the room, and I don't know the answer. Can I facilitate this for us so that we can create a better outcome for all of us? That's for leaders in particular. Second, it's starting with outcomes and purpose and then designing little experiments. So take the weight off, take the weight off. Design a little experiment, something that you can do, that you can reverse, and you just get data. Third, you don't have to do it yourself. There's so much wisdom in the room. And as a leader, your job is to create an environment for that wisdom to come out. And then, finally, I think it's I'm going to quote Damian Hooper Campbell, who's a leader in a variety of companies, latest at Uber and Zoom and Lyft and so forth. And he said DEI progress is measured in quarters and years, not in weeks and months. So by doing these little experiments, what you do is get 1% better. 1% better every week. Every quarter starts to accumulate, and the next thing you know, you've made incredible progress, but it hasn't felt like a heroic lift. So I think that is the last piece that I would add.

Phil Wagner

It's fantastic. This is such a great conversation. Again, I just want to reiterate for our listeners what a good read.

Everett Harper

Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Just so well written. And as a professor, I'm always looking for ways I can take really interesting concepts and put them into pragmatic outcomes. And you have both. So thank you for great writing, thank you for great conversation. Thank you for your work. It's such an honor to speak with you. Everett, thanks so much for joining us on our podcast.

Everett Harper

I really appreciate it. And just to add, book is Move to the Edge, Declare it Center. You can get it on all the places, Amazon, as well as the indie bookstores. I'm a big supporter of independent bookstores, so indie books and bookshop.org is ways that you can get it. Or you can follow me. I have my own site, everretharper.com. I'm at truss.works. That's for my company. And we are definitely hiring. If you want a kind of environment that is fitting in with this, and then on all the socials I'm Everett Harper, Twitter, et cetera, come interject and please ask questions or challenge things. This is the start of a conversation, and I really appreciate where you went with this because it's a different look and a very unique look, and so I really appreciate it.

Phil Wagner

Thank you, sir, and listeners, as we do this work together, let's build those networks. Please follow support. Everett, Everett thanks again for your time today. It's been a real pleasure.

Everett Harper

All right, all you imaginal cells out there, let's go.

Phil Wagner

There we go.

Everett Harper

Cheers.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at Women & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What Dr. Glover is most proud of in her DEI work
• How DEI work has changed and shifted in the past 25 years
• The importance of not having buzzwords as value statements
• How to stay current in the continuously changing world of DEI
• How to be resilient in the face of opposition while on one's DEI journey
• How best to engage with DEI skeptics
• What is the best way to move the DEI needle forward during politically divisive times

Transcript

Chon Glover

I do believe that a better day is coming. I really, really do. And I know that it will not be easy, but I try to have faith and persevere.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work, the podcast where we center real, human-lived experiences that shape and inform our diversity work. It's a true honor today to speak with someone who I have learned so much from in my own DEI leadership journey. Dr. Chon Glover is a monumental fixture and a change agent here at William & Mary. She came here in 1996 from Presbyterian College, and she has served in so many roles since that time. Most of us know her now as the Chief Diversity Officer. That's a position she's served faithfully in since 2012. She has done so much for this campus, so much for DEI leadership in the context of higher ed. Chon, it is an honor to have you here on our podcast today. Thanks for joining.

Chon Glover

Thank you so much, Phil. It's a privilege.

Phil Wagner

All right. So, Chon, you're a fixture here at William & Mary. You have been here a long time and someone who has had monumental impact on my own time here. So as a tireless advocate for DEI since 96 and really before. You have helped move the needle forward on so many initiatives here at William & Mary. What are you most proud of all the things you've accomplished in the last 25 years?

Chon Glover

Well, first, I have to tell you that that was a wonderful way of saying you've been here for a long time. It was a nice way, just to say fixture. I think for me, Phil, I did not necessarily come thinking I would stay 25 years. I came in with the purpose of trying to make some change. DEI is all about transformation and change. And so I have had so many opportunities from different areas of the campus and different perspectives to be able to have some impact on change, and I've just tried to do that on a regular basis. The things that I'm most proud of are probably what I see as the things that are going to last for all time coming. And those are the landscape changes that we have seen over the last couple of years from 2016, when we dedicated Hardy and Lemon Hall, the first residence halls that were named for people of color. And then Shenkman Hillel Center, the renaming Boswell Hall, Willis Hall, Chancellor's Hall, the wall plaques at the Wren building that recognized the women, the 24 women who integrated William & Mary and also the three first African American students who were in residence. And then all the way up to the Art Masu marker that was dedicated just this past spring and also penultimately the Hearth memorial to the enslaved, which really, really added a whole front door to this campus in a way of acknowledging our history.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And to our listeners. Like many other areas in the geographic south, William & Mary has had to reckon with some past naming that we have attempted to sort of not rewrite over that history, but acknowledge the pain of that history and then be committed to a better 330 years ahead. And if you haven't been to our campus to visit some of those spaces, particularly Hearth, the Memorial to the enslaved, come at night walk by it, and it's just chill-inducing and just such a beautiful memorial. But Chon, you know William & Mary, we've been through a lot of change ourselves. We have a very long and sometimes complicated history. And I know that our institutional definition of DEI, or kind of our institutional understanding of DEI, has changed quite a bit over time, too. How has your own understanding of DEI work shifted in parallel to that process, too? How have you grown, and how you see that term and understand what it actually means to do this work?

Chon Glover

So when I came in 1996, we were still using the term minority and multicultural. And so, as you will understand, as I talk about this, the nomenclature for describing this work has changed and evolved over the years. And so a lot of that is because of those blind spots and biases that we hold that give people opportunities to create shortcuts, to create categories for people. And so we've changed because we changed from minority, because in many cases, we were changing, and the world was changing, and people of color were not necessarily the minority and are projected to be the majority in a couple of years. And so we went from minority to multicultural. Then we went to diversity, and that became a buzzword. And then as we've gone on, you know, now we've gone to inclusion, belonging, equity, and now BIPOC, so black, indigenous people of color. So as we've extended, people have wanted to find a space where representation matters and they can be identified as their true self or their true group and not just put together with other or other groups. And so it's been really important. The thing that we have to be concerned about is that we really can't allow the words to define the work.

Phil Wagner

Oh, good. Absolutely.

Chon Glover

I was fortunate enough to be a part of the team that worked on our values and our mission statement, and we had never had an actual value statement. If you'd ask any person on campus what are our values, everybody would probably come up with a totally different list. And so when we were doing that process, one of the things that I really stress is that I don't want us to say that diversity is our core value because I knew that that was going to be a target word. Some people like it, and some people don't. And so I really stress that we go with belonging because that is much more inclusion. That's how does a person feel in this community? Do they feel seen, respected, valued? And that's what we want for our community. I really wanted to not have buzzwords as our value statements. And we've had a lot of conversations around belonging for the last couple of years. We did this in 2019, and it's really caused, I think, some really great conversations because people don't necessarily want to admit what belonging really means and what inclusion means. We say, let's get the numbers, let's get all our numbers, increase our numbers. But numbers don't mean anything if people don't feel like they are part of the community.

Phil Wagner

No, I 100% agree. What I love is that it's not even just belonging, which is, of course, sort of the on-the-nose value that aligns here, but all of our other value. I'm just going to sort of William & Mary cheerlead for a second because I really am proud of some of the progress we've made. Our other values of curiosity and integrity and flourishing and service, and respect, those all directly map onto this work too. So I think leading from those values, let the values drive the language, let the values drive the initiatives, and I think that's very powerful. I mean, you've been a DEI leader, Chon, for almost three decades. I mean, really more.

Chon Glover

Right.

Phil Wagner

Where do you or where have you sought insight for your own professional development? I mean, in 1996, right when you got here, things that seem so common now, right? Like we just accept non-binary gender perspectives, or we read Land Acknowledgments, those things. It's not that they didn't exist, but they didn't have the place that they do now. Things have changed a lot. So since so much has changed, what have you found to be most helpful in your own leadership journey? To sort of keep up with the times as the seasons and the language and the concepts change?

Chon Glover

I think one of the things that's so important to me is continuous life on learning. People will say, I'm an expert in DEI. It's not that I don't want to claim that I have a knowledge base in this area. I am continuously learning because things are changing every day. William & Mary is a microcosm of society, and the world changes every minute. And so I've had to make sure that I committed myself to being a lifelong learner to read, to stay current on events, to really seek out professional development in areas as things come. And here's one of the things you probably wouldn't even think. I have to listen.

Phil Wagner

Oh, yup.

Chon Glover

Storytelling is so important, and we learn so much from people's life experiences, and we know what we need to do to actually make people feel like, again, representation matters and that their space and existence is very important and very respected. Again, going back to the nomenclature part, justice, social justice, I mean, we saw in 2020 with the aftermath of George Floyd, we saw how much justice actually really mattered. And so you now hear people saying JEDI as opposed to just DEI. And so, I just think that I have tried to stay current, do research. The data will speak for itself. I'm not a fan of Game of Thrones. I don't watch it.

Phil Wagner

I'm with you. I tried, I can't get into it. But I'm with you, Chon.

Chon Glover

But the whole common statement about winter is coming. Winter is here.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

Winter is here, and so I think we have to make sure that we know what's going on, and we are open to that and being willing to accept it. The thing that I think that prevents people from moving forward on the spectrum of learning and being advocates for DEI is that they refuse to want to learn and be open to other perspectives. And the communication is broken down. No one wants to take the time.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

And I think that is so crucial. And in order for people to do that, you have to take the time to do it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And if we've lost any Game of Thrones listeners, just come on back, come on back.

Chon Glover

It's not that I didn't like it, it's just that I've never watched it. Yeah.

Phil Wagner

I love what you're saying. It requires such an intellectual humility. Something we've talked about a lot on this podcast is you have to quiet, even maybe your inclinations or your preferences, to create rooms for other stories, some of which may be uncomfortable because you're recognizing new realities that you have not lived. And so it takes a certain higher-order skill set here. One of the things I know about you, Chon, is that you're just so human. I mean, you are kind, you are fun, you have such a positive energy, you're humble. But I know you've faced challenges. I know institutionally, we have faced challenges. And this work is certainly not always easy work. So what advice do you have for folks who are just beginning their own DEI leadership journey about how to be resilient in the face of opposition? I mean, there had to be times where you wanted to throw in the towel. What's kept you on course?

Chon Glover

Yeah, there have been many times I wanted to throw in the towel. And there have been many times when I felt like I was running but getting nowhere. And I started out in student affairs, so that's my background and my training. And so with student affairs, you have the opportunity to see the change maybe in two years, three years. And students, many times, are just very thankful and grateful that you took the time to help them. And so, when I moved into a more generalist position, I realized that those things are not necessarily the case. You don't have every four years to kind of regenerate and have seen some of the successes. One of the things that I always say, Phil, is that this is heart work.

Phil Wagner

Oh, yeah.

Chon Glover

Like H-E-A-R-T work.

Phil Wagner

No, I got you.

Chon Glover

And hard work. And we, as DEI professionals or leaders or whatever, have to make sure that we know it's a marathon and not a sprint. I had to learn that because I wanted to see change right away. And one of the things about our venerable institution that is we're 300 years old, and change is not going to happen tomorrow. But I've stayed, and I've tried to have courageous curiosity and really be brave in the part. Maya Angelou says that if we don't have courage, we can't really have any of the other virtues or take advantage of any of the other virtues. And so I've had to really reshape my purpose and just know what my purpose is and be intentional about it. But more importantly, I have to give myself grace.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Chon Glover

The other part that gets to be really difficult there are a lot of times when you're standing alone. That's in any leadership position, but when you're doing DEI work, because it can be polarizing because some people have strong beliefs, it's really tough. And sometimes you got to stand by your stand on your own, and you got to have tough skin.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, you have to have really tough skin.

Chon Glover

Really tough skin. And you're not sometimes going to always have friends. And what I think the Pandemic taught me more than anything is valuing self-care and valuing time with myself, to center myself, to be able to take everything in around me, but to also regenerate myself to keep going and to do what I need to do. And I'll just say quickly, and finally, I am a proud product of a people who were resilient, who persevered, who had faith, and who went through so much more than what I feel like I go through every day. And their story is what keeps me going.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's so powerful.

Chon Glover

It's because if they did it, then why can't I, even with the privileges and the education and the opportunities that I have, I've got to keep doing it? Because the blood, sweat, and tears that they did and gave was for me to be able to do it. Wear these T-shirts that say I am my ancestor's wildest dreams. It's real. They didn't do this. It's like voting. People did not stand in line, get shot, killed, and all this kind of stuff for us to have the right to vote and for us not to do it. So I guess what I'm saying is I've tried to stay excited about the positions, about the work, and the job. It does get hard. It really does. But it's so impactful.

Phil Wagner

I think there's two things that really deserve some unpacking, which is the first giving yourself grace. Giving yourself grace is so important because I mean, also, you're going to say the wrong thing a time or two. You're going to maybe do the wrong thing or time or two in your effort to be well-intentioned. I think that that's really important. I think we don't do that. We don't talk about or normalize that enough. But also, I think the slow and steady wins the race thing is also something I work with a lot of our students, who I love and adore. But a lot of those folks are so justice minded they want to come in and upend the tables and change tomorrow. And organizations, much like higher education, don't often work that way. So it's finding that balance. Don't give up your values, don't give up your energy and your zeal, and your want to be a change maker. But also, how can we make this more of a strategic effort that leads to long-term sustainability? And I think your career and tenure here is one we can definitely learn from.

Chon Glover

We're working towards durable change, and that takes time. You can do things, and they're gone tomorrow.

Phil Wagner

Tomorrow, yup.

Chon Glover

We're actually talking about change for all time coming.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

This institution is different now in 2022 than it was in 1996, and it will be different in 2050.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

And we need to make sure that that's real.

Phil Wagner

And I hope you're still our Chief Diversity Officer in 2050, Chon. We can get a lot done.

Chon Glover

Phil, I care a lot about you, but I'm going to ask that you rebuke that statement.

Phil Wagner

Just kidding.

Chon Glover

That's a long time away.

Phil Wagner

I got you. So I do want to walk back a little bit. I want to talk just a little bit more about opposition, and no need to list out your enemies or anything like that, but it's speaking in a general way. This is a work that brings about a lot of opposition. How do you do that? How do you deal with that? I mean, how do you engage with DEI skeptics or those who are just completely just rebuffed by the DEI enterprise? You have to sort of meet people where they are, but also, you don't want to sacrifice your own values. So what do you do with those types of people that were likely never going to win over? How do you deal with sort of diverse stakeholders here? I guess is what I'm asking.

Chon Glover

I think for me, what I've had to do and what I always stress to people who are doing this work is know yourself. So you got to know yourself. You got to know what are you willing to take a stand for, what are you willing to actually push for. You got to be as strong and as integral as you can. You got to be curious. You got to be willing to problem-solve. And you've got to meet people where they are. I mean, you're exactly right. I said earlier that a lot of the problems that come because people refuse to be open and talk about things. It's hard to try to tell people to be open, but when you make it a human condition and talk about human beings and not necessarily people that have any particular identity intersectionality or whatever, people like, what are we trying to do for our people to make them feel comfortable? We want to make sure that we give people the space to be developed into the person that they can be and thrive. And excellence is the key word out of our values that I like to focus in on. We talk about diversity, but inclusive excellence is much more of what we really want. There is nothing negative about diversity. It is about including people and having excellence as our goal.

Phil Wagner

I love that.

Chon Glover

Whether it is academic excellence, whether it is campus climate, excellence it's all about building excellence. And I think when you try to again meet people where they are and also have conversations, but also make sure people don't try to categorize and put this work in a box and the box that's bad, you know that you got to be open and open to it and everyone's never going to agree. That's the first thing you got to understand too. Everyone's never going to agree. But I am much more about changing behaviors as opposed to attitudes because attitudes are much harder to change. And that's a personal thing. You have to want to change your attitude. But in our surrounding, in our community, we need to be able to have the behaviors that allow us to include and make sure that people feel again valued and respected so that people flourish and thrive.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, this is something I've learned from watching you too, and some of my other sort of people who have shaped me in ways of my D&I leadership, which is this goes back to the long haul, right? I came into this work sort of very naive and justice-minded and maybe more of the, like, flip the tables over variety. And I've recognized that I have much more capacity to change or to see the change that I want to see. If I am patient and if I listen and I can try to find threads of commonality in places I never thought really existed, dropping the mic doesn't really help anybody, but listening and finding where we can maybe move forward together does create that durable change you speak of. Again, I think it's just so important to go back to strategy here. One more sort of deeper layer question, an area I'm still sort of struggling with, and I'm hoping maybe you can help me here. How do you navigate the political complexity of this work? I don't want to speak for you, but I think we probably see a lot of DEI work the same way that this isn't political work, right? You're not like campaigning for anybody. This is work for all of us. But because of our current political reality, Chon, it seems to me at least that DEI work can't be fully apolitical either, right? You've navigated this role through so many different administrations in our very purple state. So what have you learned about moving the needle forward on DEI work in politically turbulent or divisive times? Tricky question.

Chon Glover

Sure, it is a tricky question. And first of all, you need to take the politics out of it and, again, focus in on the human condition as much as possible. You need to educate people, and you need to also make sure that people understand the goals of the work and why we're trying to do these kinds of things. Diversity has so many definitions, and it's multi-dimensional, and so many times, we don't think about the fact that there are different perspectives out there and all those kinds of things. And so it's difficult to sometimes deal with because people aren't willing to sit at the table and be open to listening to different viewpoints and all of that. But one of the things that I have also learned, too, is just as much as I want to laugh and talk about why it's so important to people, I have to also be respectful to listen to the opposition. So there are people who will say, I only watch CNN. I only watch NBC. I only watch certain news shows. Well, I think you got to watch both sides because you need to know what the questions are, the arguments or the viewpoints are so that when you're confronted with that, you have an answer to that question. And so I think you just have to make sure that you try to keep it as apolitical as possible, focusing on the human condition and really try to think about what are the most palatable ways to have some really generative conversations that get us to different places and know that everybody is not going to come at this from the same point.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and I think it can be done. Again, we're not going to get everybody on the same page but exposing yourself to those different sites. We don't want to live life in an echo chamber. And, of course, there are limits to that, right? You don't want to expose yourself to viewpoints that are going to contribute to your poor mental health or things like that but open up the conversation. See if you can bring all of those perspectives together, and maybe you'll get somewhere together that you thought maybe you couldn't.

Chon Glover

Well, again, know yourself.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

Sometimes if you don't have a strong sense of self, there are particular situations you don't want to place yourself in.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, yeah.

Chon Glover

And because you could ignite something and you are just trying to move forward and move the needle, and you don't want to ignite things in negative ways because they blow up. That's all you're trying to do. You're trying to really get to a true understanding of why this work is important. And again, why representation matters, why people want to be really seen and heard and valued. I shudder sometimes when I say those words because I feel like they become such buzzwords and things like that, but they're so real.

Phil Wagner

They're so real.

Chon Glover

When you walk into a classroom, and someone says, Hi, Professor Wagner, or whatever, it changes your whole disposition.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

Because even if you had up a defensive mechanism, it breaks it down because a person was truly kind.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

And the other part of it, too, is if a person that you totally disagree with is not kind, it makes it even more difficult. You don't want to pursue it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, you feel seen. And I think that is such an understated but important action to give to others the sense that they are seen, that they are valued. One of the things I love that we do here in the Mason Business School is we take just some welcome message and we translate it into every single one of the known spoken languages of our students so that when they walk in Miller Hall on the first day of classes, they're greeted in their own native language. Hey, welcome. You belong here. We're glad you're here. Just those small steps, I think, really showcase. Look, this is a space for you. You belong here. And that's such an important foundation to DEI work.

Chon Glover

Absolutely. Inclusion that's truly being inclusive.

Phil Wagner

So one final question for you. It's kind of two parts here, right? So, someone who is on the front lines of this work and has been so for a long time, I should say, number one, what keeps you up at night? And two, what gives you hope for a better tomorrow?

Chon Glover

What keeps me up at night? Gosh, it changes every night, Phil. In this work, you always have to be, in my opinion, you have to be proactive. You've got to think ahead of the game and know what you might have to anticipate. So for me, I always try to think about what's going on in the world. And because William & Mary is a microcosm of society, how is that going to impact us? Because it's not going to impact us just because it's happening. It's going to impact the people who are here, the curriculum here, it's going to impact all of us. So I try to be a problem solver and really think about, if this were to happen, how can we address it on the front end and not be reactive? When you are reactive, it really just does not help the case because there are emotions involved and all of that. So when I try to turn the mind off and just rest and relax, I try not to think about these things. But before I turn it off, before I try to get into that rem area of sleeping. I am thinking of what are the things I need to do tomorrow, but then what are the things that I need to anticipate and be willing to be a thought partner with my colleagues around campus, too? Because I can't do everything.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Chon Glover

DEI, DEIB, JEDI is not done in a vacuum. It takes more than just me. And I want to make sure I say this too. Yes, I've been here 25 years. Yes, I think I've seen some change and all of those kinds of things, and I'm very proud of it. But I am not going to tell you that it was all me. There's no way. I have had so many partners who are willing to invest in and go with me to do this work, and it takes everyone. It can't just be one person to do it.

Phil Wagner

So that hope for a better tomorrow, what is it? What gets you out?

Chon Glover

Again, I go back, to I think so much of what those who came before me went through. And if you know history, you'll know that within the African American community, there were songs that people would sing that would be signs of hope, and that would get them through. Music is very important to me. And I do believe that a better day is coming. I really do. And I know that it will not be easy, but I try to have faith and persevere.

Phil Wagner

Love it. Chon, I think the world of you. You've been so impactful to my own DEI leadership journey here. Thank you for all that you've done for our campus, for DEI, and higher ed, for DEI in the state of Virginia. And thanks for making time to come on our podcast today. It's always a pleasure to speak with you, but particularly here today.

Chon Glover

Thank you. And you're one of those partners that I talked about that has joined me in this journey as we try to do what we can to make William & Mary a better place.

Phil Wagner

Always moving forward.

Chon Glover

That's right. Thank you for the opportunity, Phil.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at Women & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• Why Clearly Gottlieb created Laura's role within the company
• Are DEI leadership roles appropriate for non-POC leaders
• Why a majority of DEI work in the world of work needs to be done by white people
• How best to prevent DEI work from over-burdening BIPOC employees
• What white leaders should do to prepare themselves to adequately prepare for DEI work
• Why white leaders should continue to do DEI work even when there's no social pressure to do so
• What steps should young people in the DEI space take to ensure success
• What effective cross-race collaboration looks like

Transcript

Laura Shepherd

White people can be well-versed and knowledgeable on issues that matter in terms of equity and inclusion in the pursuit of diversity. This isn't a space that black and brown and BIPOC people have a monopoly on, but are you willing to do the work?

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Today's guest is Laura Shepherd, who is the Global Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen, and Hamilton, a leading international law firm with 17 offices located in major financial centers throughout the world. Laura has an extensive background in higher education in the legal sector. My friend, it is so good to chat with you here. I know that you're in a relatively new role. We've interacted and collaborated in the past, but can you share a little bit more for our listeners what you're doing these days?

Laura Shepherd

Sure. And first, let me say thank you for inviting me to participate. This is my first-ever podcast.

Phil Wagner

No kidding. Okay. Other podcasters get on this. Laura is great. So get her on yours but okay.

Laura Shepherd

So if I seem overly excited, it's because it's not only my first podcast, but it's with you, and I agree.

Phil Wagner

Very kind.

Laura Shepherd

My kindred spirit. But no, thank you for welcoming me. And yes, I'm in this really new role. I started at the law firm in July. And you know this because we're friends, but totally unexpected and out of the blue, opportunity came to me. And I think that in my lifetime, I've felt like my career has sort of evolved in ways that I didn't really anticipate and expect, but I've tried to welcome the opportunities and welcome the group even when I've been anxious about it. And this was a move that caused me a lot of anxiety, but I felt like it was a good opportunity for me to learn and grow. And so, as you said, my title, it's a long one, is the Global Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Cleary Gottlieb. And essentially, the firm has really tried to root their commitment to DE&I and build out a team that is solely devoted to these issues. And as you noted, the firm has a lot of offices internationally. There's only four offices here in the US. And the majority of them live in Europe and Asia. And this position was an attempt to try to really think about a strategy that was universal to all of the offices but that also considered the differences culturally between even the offices here in the United States and then offices across Europe in Asia. And so it's really a big job I'm learning, but exciting and fascinating because as much as I love living in the DE&I space, it's now allowing me to be more thoughtful about what does DEI mean in Germany versus London, what does it mean in San Francisco versus DC? And so it's trying to create what I think of as a high-level strategy approach to DE&I with some very individualized prongs that speak to the needs of each office. And so the first few months have been challenging and exciting, and I think that there's a lot of room to grow here and a lot of impact to have, but a lot of progress needs to be made because a law firm is a very traditional space. And so I feel honored to be able to have been invited into this conversation. And I hope that I can move the needle even slightly.

Phil Wagner

I put all my money on you moving the needle forward. That's what you did here. And we met two years ago or so. We partnered together on a lot of programming and some initiatives, and I would say the first time that you and I met, something just clicked, right? And we're not perfect, and I don't think we should present ourselves as, like, a perfect case study. But I do know that we have spent a lot of time talking about sort of collaboration between BIPOC folks and white folks who can come together and do this work in meaningful ways. So I thought maybe we'd chat about that for a little bit. What do you think?

Laura Shepherd

Of course.

Phil Wagner

All right.

Laura Shepherd

I love it.

Phil Wagner

All right, so let's do that. Let's start with just entering the DE&I space. You're a DEI leader. You've been in that capacity for quite some time across a variety of different spaces and places. Obviously, white folks, black and brown folks are going to come to or at this work from different directions, from different places, from different lived experiences. Based on your insights, are DEI leadership roles even appropriate spaces for white folks to land? I know this is like a personal conflict I've had in my own DEI leadership journey. What do you think, my friend? I'm going to ask you.

Laura Shepherd

Yeah, that's a deep question. I would say, fundamentally, yes, I think it is a space where white people can reside with some caveats. Right.

Phil Wagner

Okay.

Laura Shepherd

And so in my two and a half months at the firm, I've had to hire people already, and I've thought about this really firmly, sort of, is this a space where white people can live authentically? I think that my answer is clearly yes, but I also feel like it does require some, I'm going to say, a bit of a shift and a lot of empathy, a lot of understanding, a lot of sort of internal resolution, let's say, of someone who may be white and wants to enter this space. What I think it can't be is someone who sees themselves as sort of a do-gooder, right? It's sort of like, oh, I'm going to just fix all the woes of the world because it can't look like that.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Laura Shepherd

I think it has to be somebody who has really done their work to understand how they live in privilege and where the lack of privilege exists for people who don't live in that dominant membership group. So, yes, I think it can be owned by white people, but I suspect that there's probably a little bit more work that has to be done and a little more work to demonstrate their authenticity in this space. And to me, right? What makes me believe it can be done is you. I know you, but you've been very honest with me, with audiences that we've shared about your journey in this space. But what has helped me see it better is that work with you and what you've shared because what I've realized is that you've made it possible for me and hopefully others to realize that, yes, white people can live in this space. And the advantage of having white people live in this space is the acknowledgment that the real work that needs to be done in DEI and changing our culture and changing our systems and changing our structures largely has to be done by white people. Because in most institutions, that's where the power and authority live. And you and I have shared this, right? If we leave the real work of DEI to BIPOC people who then don't have any power in most institutions, then this is really just performative talk, right? And so, you know, that's been my struggle. And my identity as a black woman is sort of like, yeah, let's put these people in these positions and give them a title. And they don't really have any ability to change the culture. They have the ability to do performative work, which I am vehemently against doing. And I think that creates a conflict for people like me that you can't really get to the spaces and places where the conversations need to be had. What I love about you existing in this space is your willingness to be so completely honest and acknowledging that there are experiences that you've never had. But what has value for me and what endears me to you as my dear friend is that you admit that, and you know that you don't know the experiences that I've had. But you've never questioned my experiences. You've never questioned the way I see the world. You've never questioned that my existence may look different than yours. You've always acknowledged that and validated that. And that's what makes it so meaningful because I feel like what you represent for me, and I know for many others, is how allyship in its purest and most needed form.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, well, you're very kind, and yeah, I love our ebony and ivory, right? And I think those partnerships are certainly very valuable. And I think one of the reasons that I've gotten and maintained space in this space is that and you and I have talked about this extensively so often. There's this sort of, like, double exploitative effort that DEI roles often subject black and brown folks to. There's this foreboding sense of expectation of, like, well, yeah, you're BIPOC. Of course, you need to be on the diversity committee. And because we want somebody of color on the hiring committee, you got to be there too. And you're on the party Planning committee and the year-end Audit committee. And so it's just this impossibility of two less-than-ideal outcomes. One, the person of color gets overburdened and burns out, or there isn't adequate diversity in the representation on certain initiatives or committees, which we know hurts candidates of color too. So what advice can you give to organizations you've thought about higher level DE&I strategy? What advice can you give for how to think more strategically about how to spread the load so that it's not disproportionately on the back of black and brown folks or just other marginalized folks writ large?

Laura Shepherd

Yeah, I think that's a challenge. Right. And we know that when that happens that people BIPOC people who occupy those spaces often express that they feel exhausted, right? And it's because what we know is sort of the black tax, but you could call it the Asian tax, the Latinx, or Latin. It's that extra burden that people have to carry because when we want to create diverse committees or diverse teams, if you only have one person who fits that bill, then they get tagged for all of it. And I have worked with people who have rejected it. I'm not doing another thing. It's not my fault that this institution has not been able to create more diverse representation so that I don't have to be tagged to do everything. So I think first and foremost is, you have to think about how you build out your talent, right? If you only have one person who can check that box, then that's your problem right there.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Laura Shepherd

But then you can't make that person pay for the fact that you haven't made a true and meaningful, intentional, authentic commitment to diversity. You have to then go do that in any way that it makes sense for your organization. Right. What are you lacking? Is it women? Is it black and brown people? Whatever it is, then you need to be thoughtful about why don't you have the representation. But you also need to be thoughtful about the burdens that you put on those people. If you don't have other people who occupy those spaces in the current moment, then I think it's incumbent upon organizations to think about, well, then what do we need to do in terms of providing the education and the foundation for the people who exist? Because it goes back to your first point. White people can be well-versed and knowledgeable on issues that matter in terms of equity and inclusion in the pursuit of diversity. This isn't a space that is black and brown and BIPOC people have a monopoly on but are you willing to do the work? I think too many organizations look at those people and think, oh, they shoulder that burden. That, to me, comes from the top. And that's where leadership should say, this is a responsibility that each of us has, and I will hold everyone accountable. And so whatever it takes, whatever education you have to bring, and you and I subscribe to the same belief. Education in this space can't be a one-and-done. We can't have, like, a brown bag lunchtime, 1 hour, and then we're all finished, and everybody's good. There needs to be conversations that are continually woven into the environment, and the accountability has to be there. And if you do that, you should be doing both, right? You should be pursuing more diverse talent in your organizations, but you should also be requiring that the people who currently exist, particularly the people in power and the people who have a seat at the table, know that they're accountable for this. There should never be a conversation that takes place in an organization where people aren't challenging whether what's being discussed, what's being implemented. Is it equitable? Does it consider the diversity and representation of everyone in our organization or everyone we serve? Clients, customers, stakeholders? And are we creating inclusive spaces, practices, language, initiatives? Everybody should be asking that question. And it shouldn't matter if there's a BIPOC person at the table. Everybody at the table should have responsibility for ensuring that that's happening.

Phil Wagner

So having a seat at the table is its own form of capital. It's its own form of power. If you are a white DEI leader and you have a seat at the table, you seem to tee up some important themes here, that there is then an imperative for you to do some deeper digging, some more professional element. I mean, what would you say to white leaders in the DEI space? How can you challenge them to ensure they are adequately prepared to deal with the realities of this work, and what pitfalls or challenges, maybe, should they be aware of if they're leading in this space?

Laura Shepherd

I think that they should be probably prepared for a lot of pushback and resistance. A lot of people sort of poopooing it. And I suspect because, again, I've never walked in the identity of a white person, right? But I would venture to guess that there may be spaces where someone will say something in your presence because they think, oh, there's no black person here, there's no LGBTQ person, or whatever. So I can say these things. I think that if you are going to occupy space, DEI space, as a white person, you have to be courageous, you have to be brave. I think you also have to be almost unapologetic in the ways in which you interrupt conversations and seek to dismantle those structures or systems that we know exist in any organization that serve to work against marginalized populations. And so I think it means that you have to be thoughtful about what you hear tenacious in what you say. And I feel like you can't be in a space, and you make the decision not to speak up because in those spaces that may be all white, you have a lot of influence and power, and you have the ability to provide a different perspective. And so I think it requires having that ear to hear, well, okay, that comment or that conversation doesn't impact me and my identity, but I know that it's patently wrong or that it's going to work against some population. And it is my obligation, it's my duty, it's my responsibility to speak up. I think you may risk losing friends and losing allies because I think oftentimes in those spaces, people think, well, you're one of us, right? And so you get it, and it's just a joke. And so I think you have to be willing to lose some friends or maybe to lose some allies, but in the name of the pursuit of justice, I think you have to be willing to do that because think about all of the black and brown and Asian and native and Latinx, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ people who have pressed and pressed and pressed for years and years and who have lost their lives, who have lost their livelihoods, who have lost everything that they put on the line in the pursuit of justice for these marginalized groups. And so if you are going to be a white person who occupies the DE&I space, I think that you have to remember that these people had so much to lose, and they did it in spite of and so you can't occupy this space any less than that, and you have to be willing to lose something. And I've always said that in this work, is that I'm willing to lose popularity. I'm willing to lose friends. I'm even willing to lose a job in the pursuit of what I know is right. But what I know is if I'm always doing the right thing, that the right thing will ultimately come to me. But I won't sit in a space and allow something to be said or done that I know is going to have substantial or even minimal impact upon a discrete group of people and not speak up. I may not be able to change that outcome, but I'm always going to speak up in the name of justice.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I know we're being overly reductionist here as we talk about white, black. Of course, there are other intersectionalities that make your access point to the D&I landscape, right? If you're a neurodivergent, if you're LGBTQ, right? There are a variety of access points here, but there's something so significant about race for this social moment, this era of reckoning. I really do think this white-black dichotomy is something to reconcile. And as you speak about speaking up. So often, I think that a lot of that can become just very performative. You see a lot of white speaking out, white rage, not in the way we think about white rage, but like rage from white people, about race-laden issues. Post George Floyd post like, how do we make sure as white? How would you recommend that white DEI leaders, I should say, continue to do the right thing even when there's not, like, this social wave that they continue to do day in and day out, those things that actually promote the dignity and value of black lives, not just when it's performatively Kosher to do so.

Laura Shepherd

I think it's what you said. I mean, I think it has to become almost second nature and a part of your daily walk in life. I think it means continuing to challenge your own assumptions and biases and scan the environment to see when those biases and assumptions and stereotypes pop up. It's probably, and again, I can't speak from experience, but I would venture to guess that if you live in a privileged identity as a white person that there may be things that you don't see. I think it means fine-tuning your lens and understanding that while I may have this experience because of my privilege, consciously let me think about how would this have worked for someone who didn't live in that identity. And I think it's something that we can all do. The example I give is in the space of neurodiversity. I have a child with special needs, and what I found in my experience in managing his needs in the public school system, when I show up in the space, they have family history, demographics, they know I'm a lawyer. And so I've never had an issue getting any of the accommodations that I've needed. I think that they just look at me and think, oh, we're not going to challenge this woman like she probably knows more than we do. And I go in with my binder, and I'm prepared, and I have my talking points, and my questions and I'm like, okay, we need to talk about this. And I make modifications. I read all the documents. But that's privilege. I have a privilege that I know other parents don't have. I have the privilege of my education. I have the privilege of my socioeconomic status. I can take off a work to go to a meeting at a school at 10:00 in the morning, right? And so I recognize that in that space, I have a privilege. I know what the opposite side of that looks like. And so oftentimes when I'm in those meetings when they push back on an accommodation, I have said this is not just important to my child, this is important to any child who shows up in this space. And so I hope that this is not something that just become pro forma, that you just push back. Like every child is entitled to this. Look, I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but I at least want to raise that awareness in that space where I do have the floor that what you are doing is categorically improper. And I'm telling you, not just in the context of my child, but hopefully, you think about this in the context of any child who comes before you and any parent who may not recognize that they have the right to advocate strongly for their child. I think that it means understanding when privilege is enacted for you and how you can use your privilege to the benefit of other people. And so I've said in spaces to men if you know that the women that you work alongside make less than you simply because they're women, you have an obligation to speak up. You can't call yourself an ally if you don't challenge the system and say, why is my colleague making less than I am? I want to understand why is that distinction necessary. And what I've said to people is they're not going to take any money out of your check because you asked the question. But you might then be able to say, look. We really should be thinking more thoughtfully about the way in which we approach pay equity across gender lines. So I think you have to be able to consciously and deliberately challenge the privilege that you have in the spaces in which you exist. That has to be a daily walk. I think it's something that is probably hard to do but that you continue to cultivate. But I think I do it too. I only live in my own identity, and of course, I occupy a lot of intersectionality, but I recognize that I don't live in other identities that I'm responsible for serving. So I have to constantly challenge myself and look at things and think about how would this work if a person showed up in this identity. And you have to keep pushing it. You have to know that you're not always going to get it right. You have to be willing to be corrected and to be called out or called in on it. And you have to take that information and move forward and know that if someone challenges me on an assumption that I have, I have to do my work to overcome it. And I can't repeat that again.

Phil Wagner

There's so much to unpack there. Number one, getting called out or called in. Been there, been there, right? I think a good testament to your real commitments is when that happens, do you wash your hands and move on or do you hang tight and do the self-work there? But I also love how you speak of privilege. Oh my gosh, it's such a loaded term, right? People roll their eyes the moment we say it, but I think you just paint a different visual picture there. Privilege is about showing up to the tables that you have access to with your binder in hand. This is about asking, well, what's in your binder? What are the commitments that you bring to the table? And not in that Mitt Romney, like, binders full of women thing, but, like, really showing up and bringing commitments forward, bringing advocacy forward, bringing recommendations forward that reflect those true, authentic commitments to DEI. And I think that then changes the landscape for who can do this work and how they might be able to do it. But let's talk about black or BIPOC leaders in the DEI space. You're a prolific leader. So many people would love to walk in Laura Shepherd's footsteps. Can you speak to younger Laura? I mean, I know you're young and vibrant now, but, like younger Laura, are there things that you wish you would have known as a leader, a female person of color leading in this space before you jumped into this work? Are there challenges that befall BIPOC leaders or female leaders in this landscape that we maybe want to talk about?

Laura Shepherd

Oh, gosh, yes. So many things. Right. I think, first and foremost, I would have been more thoughtful about seeking out mentors so that I could have gotten some guidance. Because I think the younger you are, no fault of your own, but the less life experience you have and the less sort of the lessons that you have in terms of learning and failing and right. You don't have it, and you don't have the ability to cultivate wisdom, the wisdom I have now. So I wish I would have been more thoughtful about really the value of a mentor. I wish I knew the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. I now know that there were people in my career who were sponsors of mine, but I didn't really know what that meant. I know now because I understand the landscape much better. I now appreciate what those people were doing for me and how they advocated for me outside of my presence. I don't think I was always really aware that that was happening, but I do know now. I think also just I wish that I had more courage to speak up in spaces where I knew that there was something wrong, but I didn't know that I had a voice. And I think that I was probably scared of what would be the outcome if I said, hey, that's not appropriate. There were times that I did do it, and you get that sort of pit in your stomach, but I wasn't always sure what to do in that conversation. And I think the challenge is not wanting to attack people but to be able to have a conversation where you try to explain to them why you're troubled by the words they've used or whatever it is that you're trying to call attention to. And I think just having more confidence to do that. I think now, in my cranky old age, I'm not sure that I'm much more competent, but I think the difference now is I care a lot less about what people think of me because I know that with 99.9% surety that what I do is out of the best of intentions and with the best motives. And that's really all I care about. I don't try to hurt people's feelings, for sure, but I tell the truth. And what I tell people in most instances is, don't ask me a question if you don't want to hear the truth. Now, I will be as kind and compassionate as I can, but I will tell you the truth even if it hurts your feelings. Not because I intend to hurt your feelings, but because the pursuit of justice to me requires some really stark honesty, right? And we can't defend and pursue justice if we try to shape-shift around people's feelings. And so I will say to people, I was in a meeting recently where there's a bunch of people on a zoom screen, and somebody asked me a question, and I thought, this answer is going to be a little controversial. And I said to the person, I need to say this before I answer. And everybody sort of looked up, and I said, I tell the truth, and I tell the truth even though I know it might hurt people's feelings. Now, I'm willing to deal with the backlash of that. I take responsibility. But if you ask me a question, I'm going to tell you the truth. So before I answer, I want to ask you again, is that the question you want to ask me in this time and space?

Phil Wagner

Yeah. That's good.

Laura Shepherd

And he said, everybody kind of looked up, and he said, this is definitely the question I want to ask you. So I answered the question. And look, I may have heard some people's feelings, but I always try to give a context, and I try to explain why I believe it's my responsibility, it's my duty, to tell the truth. You cannot speak up for marginalized groups of people and be so concerned about whose toes I'm stepping on. I don't want to step on people's toes. And I'm certainly always willing to have a conversation with someone about why I said what I said. And what I often say to people is what I'm saying is not an indictment of you, but what I'm saying is my thoughts on what is occurring in this space. And if you ask me, I have an obligation to say it. What I'm hoping to do, though, is to prime people for don't ask me questions if you don't want me to tell you the truth. I think our societies, our institutions need more spaces where we challenge assumptions. And that we're willing to hear the truth about what's happening so that we can really get down to doing the work that's going to dismantle these systems.

Phil Wagner

And it might surprise you who calls you out in those spaces. They might be the wokest of them all because you are revealing realities or fractures or fissures that have worked just really well being a skeleton hidden away in a closet. A tough reality to acknowledge. I've been there too. But how do you get there? Earlier, you mentioned what it's like to feel powerless, having titles but not real power or real emotional or social capital. So what if you're a younger leader from a marginalized group, particularly? How do you hold your C-suite accountable? How do you get to the place where you set the standard of I'm a truth teller? How do you self-advocate? How do you get to be bold like you are now? What if you're just starting your career? What are steps you put in place to get there?

Laura Shepherd

I don't think it's easy. Right? I don't want to sound like I have some magical sexy elixir that would make this all work well. I think that I would probably start it. Look at the institution that you work at. What do they say their commitment to this cause is? Right? Because everybody has a shiny word smith statement on we're committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, justice, whatever the words we use, I would start there and look at that statement and then start to assess, well, how do I see this in action? Where do I see it in action? Or where am I not seeing it in action? And then I might take those sort of accounts, right? Here's your statement. And then here's instances where it's not clear to me that that commitment is being lived out, right? And then I might go to whoever it is, your immediate manager, supervisor, and start to point that out, right? So we're saying we're committed to this, but can we talk about this initiative, this project, whatever? This doesn't feel to me like it's living in that commitment. And I'm trying to understand where the accountability. Who has responsibility? How can we get more aligned so that everything that we do lives in this commitment, lives in these institutional values? Now, you know me well and know I've challenged that a lot because I don't like to see language and words thrown around in a performative, perfunctory way. And so I think that I would start there. Look, I acknowledge that if you are early on in your career in these spaces that, there may be times that you don't feel comfortable doing that. I recognize the reality of I got to pay my bills, right? I got to live, so I can't just risk being fired from institutions. Recognize that, and so I think it may be, for some people, a space where you have to tread carefully. I think the goal is to be strategic and to use data as much as you can to support your view. So if you can say, look, I see that we have this commitment, but look at this statement that says X, I don't see how that you can find more examples. You have this data point. Like, I found six or seven examples of where this doesn't appear to be living in our commitment. Can we talk about that? Think about who the stakeholders are, right? And weave that in. How would our stakeholders' internal, external feel if they saw this? How does this breach our commitment to these values and to try to bring that conversation? I think it's important to make those conversations based in data, whether it's qualitative or quantitative, and less based on your gut feeling. Because I've learned if you go to people and just say, I don't like it. I feel like it's bad. People are more willing to write you off, but hold them accountable for what they say. Take that. You said that this was our commitment. You said this is what we were going to be doing as an institution. I'm not seeing that lived out. How can I help us achieve that?

Phil Wagner

I feel like I've heard you say those exact words, and I've seen you hold people accountable. So I can corroborate you don't just talk a big game. You walk it out too. Look, we started this conversation by saying maybe we're not the perfect case study, but you know what? I like us. I like you. I like me. I like what we've been able to do together. So let's talk about that Ebony and Ivory collaboration. Final question for you is, in your mind, what is effective white, black, black, white solidarity look like in the context of collaborative DE&I work? We know that many hands make the work light. How do we bring all of those differently colored hands together, right, to really lift off our DEI efforts and make them something that is impactful, collaborative, healthy, effective? What's effective white-black solidarity look like in this space?

Laura Shepherd

It looks like me and you. I mean, look, I don't pretend to have all the answers, but what I know is I think it looks like what we've been able to do in all of our imperfections. You and I share this great view that we're messy, and we live in the messiness of our lives. And that's what I love about you. I think it looks like figuring it out, being compassionate and forgiving, and willing to step into spaces that might be uncomfortable. We have shared things with each other about our stories and our history that are personal and palpable, and that really speak to who we are and how we've gotten to where we are today. I think it requires that willingness, to be honest, and compassionate, and empathetic. I know that I've said things to you about my past where you just said to me I didn't know that about you, and that helps me understand more about you. It's validating people's experience. I wonder, in some instances, if white people understand that what most BIPOC or marginalized people want is a place of safety in spaces with people that don't look like them. I think what you have added to this friendship, to this synergy that you and I have, is you've provided a safe place for me to tell you my story, my experience, with no judgment. And I can be completely unfiltered. You know, I say this all the time, right? Liberation, for me, means that I can exhale, and my shoulders go down. I feel like every conversation I've ever had with you, from the very first time we interacted, I've never felt the need to be anything other than who I am. As I show up in my multiple identities that, I can be completely unfiltered with you and that there's no judgment, and I can be fully in my blackness and my womanness and whatever else is with you. And that you don't judge it, that you accept me as who I am. You see the value in what I bring to the table. I think it's true. Likewise, I look at you.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Laura Shepherd

And when I see you, of course, I see you in your identity as a white man. But that never enters my mind in the conversations. I never think, oh, I have to be different because Phil is white. Or I do think that in other spaces with other white people. Right. But you have provided a space where I can be fully and authentically myself, fully liberated in my identity. And even if we don't agree on something, we can just talk about that because, again, I know that you value what I bring to the table. I value everything that you bring to the table. You have given me the ability to think about this from a lens of someone who's not a black woman. I don't know that identity, but you've allowed me to think about it. You've also allowed me to understand, just as you said, that white people can occupy this space. And you've shown me how that can be done in a way that honors the work but that acknowledges the differences. And it's made me realize that you don't have to be insert white, black, brown, LGBTQ, whatever to recognize the challenges of how people who live in those identities live in our society. And then I see you and think, gosh, this human being wants so much for the world to be better for people like me. And so I think that in the way this works is the way we work, is that I get to be fully me with you unapologetically, and you accept that, and you get to be fully you to me, and I don't want anything about you to change. Right? I don't look at you and say, oh, this white man with his privilege. No. I look at you and think this white man who has privilege recognizes he has privilege and is doing his everything he possibly can to get people to understand that in the privilege in which he exists and holds, there's power in that, and there's power in your allyship. And I like to say to people that allyship really that's thrown around as a buzzword, right? I'm an ally. My view is if you have to tell me you're an ally, you're probably not an ally. And so I think that allyship needs to show up in a way that is more than allyship. And your allyship, to me personally, in my identity as black as woman is evident without you ever having to tell me you're an ally. I know categorically you are on my side. And I know if I came to you and said, Phil, this is my experience, this is how it made me feel that you were going to validate and honor that and not try to talk me out of it. I know that you would advocate for me when I'm not around, and that's what it needs to look like. And I know that you have always been willing to admit these aren't experiences that you've had, but you recognize that no one should have.

Phil Wagner

I'm incredibly moved on this side of the microphone, and I'm like, wow, Phil, what a gross toss-up to the question that was like the biggest ego boost, which was not my intent, but I appreciate that, and I appreciate you. I mean, allow me to likewise, just gush. Thank you for being you and not withholding. You have taught me so much, and that's not your responsibility. But just by being Laura in this space and being you, I have just gleaned so much from you. I appreciate the collaborative partnership that we've been able to cultivate, and I hope that for others, I see such potential in the DEI space, which is messy, and sometimes it's gross, and oftentimes it's really overly performative, which makes it even grosser. But when you can foster those real human-to-human relationships, you can be full and authentically yourself. You can hold space for each other's pain and trauma and stories, the ones you see, the ones you know, the ones you don't. There's real potential there. There's real, real potential there. And so, amidst all just the racial divide, I don't want to gloss over this and make it all bubblegum and frou-frou.

Laura Shepherd

Sure.

Phil Wagner

There are real issues, but I think we can collaboratively work on those issues together. And that also means sometimes this isn't the space for me. I got to tap out, right? Like not every space do I have to come in and sit at the table or use my voice, but I really do believe in the power of potential, and I wanted to just explore that with you over the last few minutes. And again, I'm incredibly moved. I love you and the work that you do. I think the world of you. I miss you every single day, but I know that you are driving change in the realest of ways. So thanks for taking time to share with our listeners on our podcast.

Laura Shepherd

There's so many thoughts in my head, but I will just say thank you for thinking that I should be a guest on your podcast. I think I love you in ways that you probably don't even know because I think what you've said is so important that you know what spaces you belong in, and you know what spaces you don't belong in, and that's important. And you just said something that I do want to say. You said it's not my responsibility to teach you. I do think it's not the responsibility of marginalized people to teach other people. I think the difference is it is your responsibility to learn, and you have accepted that responsibility.

Phil Wagner

That's good.

Laura Shepherd

I think that's the difference is you've never shown up to me and said, Laura, tell me why this? But you have done the work to hear what I'm saying and to take that and translate it into a learning opportunity for yourself without making me feel as if it is my duty to help you understand. And I think that's the difference. And I would say that for anybody who is white and wants to occupy the space, that's the difference. Do the work on your own, which you do and continue to do each day. Recognize the spaces that you should occupy, advocate for the spaces that you shouldn't occupy, and explain to other white people we don't belong here. This is why they need that safe space. You've done that. And I think it is making an unwavering commitment to learning about other cultures and understanding that difference is good. I don't have to walk in that person's shoes to understand that they have a right to exist fully and authentically. And you've done all of that for me and for others. I think the first time that we ever met was on a zoom.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think so.

Laura Shepherd

Chatting you and saying, hey, let's get together, I knew then that there was some connection that was intended for us. It hasn't disappointed.

Phil Wagner

More to come. More to come.

Laura Shepherd

Invite me back, and we'll talk about some more good stuff.

Phil Wagner

You got it.

Laura Shepherd

And I'm going to have you come talk to my folks about some. But I honor the work that you do. So thank you.

Phil Wagner

Thank you, and thank you to our listeners for tuning into Diversity Goes to Work today. Thank you for tuning into Laura and Phil gush at each other, and you see our friendship sort of play out over zoom. But you know what? In a tough world we live in. We need these relationships. So thanks for coming along on our friendship journey here over the last 45 minutes or so. And hopefully, you gleaned something helpful about collaborative partnerships in the D&I space. Until next time.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What Kelly considers her greatest accomplishment
• How Kelly's vision for a better future was shaped
• What defines human trafficking and modern-day slavery
• What are the different forms of human trafficking
• How many victims of human trafficking are there
• Who are primarily the victims of human trafficking
• What Kelly's work at Project Mona's House has taught her about healing
• What Kelly is most proud of
• How best to factor human trafficking issues into the DEI space in the world of work

Transcript

Kelly Galloway

Fighting for human trafficking, fighting against human trafficking and fighting against slavery, and fighting for the freedom of people is not just a fad for me. It's not trendy. It is personal, as I am a descendant.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Today we have the opportunity to take our conversation in a bit of a different direction, and I'm beyond delighted to be able to host Kelly Galloway, who is the founder and director of Mona's House, a Buffalo base restoration home for human trafficking victims. Kelly is a modern-day abolitionist. She is a leader on the move, addressing some of the darkest and bleakest moments of the human condition. Kelly raises awareness on human trafficking and modern-day slavery everywhere she goes. One of my favorite things that she's done is her direct involvement with the Freedom Walk, which is an almost 1000 miles journey, I believe, that follows the Underground Railroad, which helps raise awareness on human trafficking and slavery. She's out there. She's doing the work. And I'm delighted to be able to welcome you here today.

Phil Wagner

Kelly, thanks for joining us. I think I read a little bit of your bio, but that's just a small piece of who you are and what you do. Can you share maybe for our listeners a little bit more about who you are and the work you do every day at Mona's House?

Kelly Galloway

Yeah. So like you said, my name is Kelly Diane Galloway. I am a modern-day abolitionist, activist, and civil rights leader. Out of all my titles and all of my accolades that I've received over the last couple of years, as it says in the last instance of my bio is, my greatest accomplishment is being a servant of God. And I'm on a mission to die empty. And that's in anything that I put my hand to do. I believe that it's favored, and it's a part of God's plan. And so I occupy, and I take up space in the places that I'm sent to. And right now, I believe in freedom. Well, not right now, but I've always and always will believe in freedom for all people, not as a privilege, but as a right. And until that happens, I won't stop fighting.

Phil Wagner

Awesome. Kelly, you've done a lot over the years. You have a very active Instagram profile, and I've been following your work for a while. Tell us where your passions came from for this work. I mean, you talk about this commitment to freedom, not just as, like you said, a privilege, but a right. So can you share a little bit more about I know a little bit about your story and this experience with Ramona that you've spoken of? Does that resonate with you? Can you share a little bit more on that story with us and how it shaped your vision for a better future, one defined by freedom?

Kelly Galloway

Yeah. Well, first of all, we have to address what is human trafficking. What is slavery? Slavery.

Phil Wagner

Let's begin there. Let's define this term because it's really loaded, right?

Kelly Galloway

Yeah. Honestly, I think that sometimes we overcomplicate things as humans because we like to overcomplicate things and seem like the smartest people in the room. But in actuality, slavery is literally forcing somebody to do something against their will for some kind of financial gain and or power or influence. And so human trafficking is this buying and selling of human beings. It's literally that simple. It is the term human trafficking, in my opinion, is a romantic or sensationalized term for slavery. And I just turned 37 years old a couple of weeks ago.

Phil Wagner

Happy Birthday.

Kelly Galloway

Thank you. And as a 37-year-old black woman in the United States of America, I'm only the third person in my family, third generation in my family, to be born free. But what does that mean? Because your history books makes it seem like this happened thousands of years ago. That means that I, Kelly Diane Galloway, born 1985, I was born free. That means my father, Warren Keith Galloway, born 1950, he was born free. That means that my grandmother, Sarah May Galloway, the late Sarah May Galloway, born 1929, was born free. Everybody else before that in my family was enslaved. Even after slavery was eradicated, they were still enslaved. And so I am a descendant of individuals who are victims of human trafficking, bought and sold for labor, bought and sold for sex, bought and sold for medical experimentation and entertainment. And so fighting for human trafficking, fighting against human trafficking and fighting against slavery, and fighting for the freedom of people is not just a fad for me. It's not trendy. It is personal, as I am a descendant. And so you got to think about it. Harriet Tubman died just ten years before my grandmother was born. This is recent history. And so when I encountered Ramona when I was living in a city called Thessaloniki, Greece, working for an organization called A21 run by a dynamic woman named Christine Caine of Hillsong Church, I met Ramona, and we quickly formed a strong bond and relationship and sisterhood because it wasn't any other workers there that understood Spanish. It was just a quick thing that kind of happened. But in that time, I realized that I learned that Ramona was a victim of human trafficking, who was a wife of one husband and a mother of three children. And I remember, unfortunately, when I was in Greece working, I was prepped for this prior to my interviews about just the type of working conditions that I would encounter by working in Greece. And so I knew what I was getting into, but well, I thought I knew what I was getting into. But when I finally arrived, it was a pretty hostile environment in some ways. And so I found myself living in this beautiful country, doing what I love to do, but complaining every single day. And so it wasn't until I had a conversation with Ramona one day, because everything was not always happy-go-lucky inside that house, I asked her, like, why are you always so peaceful? And she shared with me why she was, and she shared with me her faith, and she shared with me a passage of scripture for her that resonated with her. And the way that I interpreted what she said was that tomorrow is going better than today, and two days from now, it's going to be better than tomorrow. And I know one day I'll be reunited with my family. In that moment, it instantly sobered me. And I realized that I didn't want to be a complainer. And in that moment, Ramona sobered me, and she gave me hope. And so that's why I named Project Mona's house after her because it needs to be a place of hope. It is a place of hope, and hope is the only thing that's going to get people going, keep people going every single day.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I feel like any time you look at you and your journey in any capacity, that's what you see with how you lead is just this commitment that hope is out there, hope is possible. I want to go back to the definition that you laid out for us because I think often related to what you talked about. We have confused understandings of trafficking. We often think sex trafficking, which is indeed like part of this. But are there other forms of trafficking that we should really sort of put a name to or identify clearly?

Kelly Galloway

Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Okay, yeah. Clarify.

Kelly Galloway

Absolutely. And I think because of that. I'm happy that you brought that up because education and awareness is the first form of prevention. And so some people always call sex trafficking sex trafficking. But you have to imagine human trafficking as this huge umbrella, and up under it are different types of trafficking. So you have sex trafficking as a form of human trafficking. You have labor trafficking as a form of human trafficking. You have begging. You have servitude. You have organ harvesting. Our two major forms of human trafficking in the United States are sex and labor. And then it's so many studies that have gone out that says, like, even though we cannot prove that organs are harvested in the United States, but that Canada and the United States of America are the number one purchasers of organs sold on the black market. And so United States leading the way, and Canada as the number two. Unfortunately, this is a daily life. This is what happens every single day for millions of people around the world. It's the second-largest crime on the entire planet. So buying and selling drugs is the first largest crime, and then buying and selling humans is the second largest crime. And then on the other side of that is buying and selling of weapons. So buying and selling humans is sandwiched in between buying weapons and buying drugs, which is what creates this breeding ground for trafficking to take place. Basically, we have made bodies commodities, things, and so that's why we say buy things, not humans, to continue to let people know that bodies should never be for sale.

Phil Wagner

I know the statistics are hard to put a finger on, right, because this is often underground. You mentioned black market, but this happens obviously in secret places. Do you have any information on how prevalent this is, either globally or in our nation? Do we have the understanding of the gravity of the problem?

Kelly Galloway

Well, we know, according to the International Labor Bureau, that over $150,000,000,000 circulates within the realm and because of the buying and selling of human beings. And also, numbers are out there from Polaris Project and FBI, and other local other national organizations that say less than 1% are ever rescued. And so if this affects over 40.3 million people a year and less than 1% are ever rescued, we really have to do something. But I believe that most people don't want to do anything about human trafficking because they don't believe that it exists and/or they, in some part, or we in some part, help fuel this industry, and in a lot of ways, we don't know how. So right now, I'm introducing in the month of September, I'm introducing the concept or not just concept, but actual documented studies on the normalization of bodies being bought and sold for different things that they were never meant to. And so that's an attack directly on porn, directly on strip clubs, directly on the sex industry. So those are things that my team and I are really diving into because it also helps to feed into adultification bias, which also directly impacts black and brown people at a higher percentage than it does anybody else, which results in black and brown people, especially victims of human trafficking being incarcerated when they really should be getting restoration. Because they're not criminals, they're victims.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. When we close our eyes and we think about the term trafficking or human trafficking, or sex trafficking, I think it's a lot like what happens when we close our eyes and think about domestic violence or sexual violence. I've done some work in those spaces we often picture, particularly women, young girls, victimized. Is that where it really starts? Are men a part of this narrative, too? How might we think about who is trafficked and how they are trafficked? Does your work give us insight there too?

Kelly Galloway

Well, first, so it's only because of funding that I only work with women and girls, but that is not because only women and girls are affected. Boys, girls, transgender, nonbinary, everybody is a victim of human trafficking. And so we have to look at our vulnerable populations. And so that is really what. I find out what are our vulnerable populations. Vulnerable populations right now are individuals who are a part of the foster care system, children who run away, anybody that's in poverty, people that have a past with trauma, LGBTQ plus populations, undocumented internationals, refugees, people addicted or abused who abuse substances. And so we have to look at vulnerable populations and realize, okay, well, they may be more susceptible to trafficking, but this is really a systemic issue that really has to be addressed at a root level. And until we address that, we're going to continue to see the numbers for trafficking rising, especially as wealth gaps widen as more people become incarcerated, which I do believe especially privatized prisons are nothing but human trafficking. This buying and selling humans and they make billions and billions of dollars being there, and they lobby for unfair sentencing. Listen, I can go into this all day.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I'm like on the edge of my feet on the other side of this. My feet are going. I mean, talk to me about funding. So every day, people like me, I care so much about what you do. And as a DEI practitioner, I care very much about what you do. I have no idea how the funding for this works and the funding obstacles that somebody like you faces. Can you speak to those? And how can everyday people also support what you're doing so that we can continue to put money in the pockets of people who are out there bringing about change?

Kelly Galloway

Well, one thing that I don't like to do is I don't like to speak in general terms. I can only speak for myself and my organization.

Phil Wagner

Sure.

Kelly Galloway

And so there are more funding resources, especially federally, that are opening for human trafficking organizations. However, I partner with tons of human trafficking anti-trafficking organizations around the nation. And it seems like organizations that are led either by minorities or by individuals who were trafficked themselves have the hardest time getting funding. It's organizations that largely run by Caucasians and people or organizations that have been around for hundreds of years or at least 100 years. They have a better chance of getting funding because even the application process is not equitable. It is not inclusive, and it does not really embrace diversity and representation of populations who really should be getting the funding. So you have to think about it, especially if you're in preventative work, right? So Project Mona's House, we work on the preventative side and restorative side. We do not work in the middle, which I look at everything I can sandwich, maybe because I'm always hungry, I'm not sure. But I believe like the top loaf for bread is prevention. Like, for instance, we were noticing that a lot of women that were coming into our care. In the very beginning, when I first opened the doors of Project Mona's House, we had women in their forty's, thirty's, late twenty's. Now, all of a sudden, the women that are coming into our care, into our services, into our center that I'm in right now are 18 and 19 years old. And so, what does that tell us? That means that we had to figure out a way to get into high schools and let people in high schools, juvenile detention centers, anywhere that these vulnerable populations were going to be. And then we had to talk to them. I think that when it comes to funding when you do preventative work, not only do you prevent human trafficking, but you could prevent high school dropouts, teen pregnancy. Like, when we run our preventative programming, like our Young Women's Empowerment program, we have girls that are writing books, girls who are opening businesses. We have authors as young as eight. So these people, we're going into vulnerable populations and making them less vulnerable. But when you look at the stats on these vulnerable populations, they're not just more likely to be trafficked, but they're more likely to be single parents, more likely to be involved in crime, more likely to be high school dropouts. So when we do preventative programming, it doesn't just prevent them from being victims of human trafficking, but it prevents them from the stigmas and the statistics that plague these certain populations. And so, I don't deny statistics, but I do believe with the adequate funding, we can change them.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Kelly Galloway

And so I think that more funding should be accessible. That is not so much red tape. And you don't have to jump through so many hoops for organizations that are survivor-led, overcomer-led, and minority-led because other organizations don't have to do that.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, well, super powerful. Thanks for putting that out there. Okay, so you are clearly somebody who is just bold. You do bold work. You are unafraid. Unashamed. You're ready to go there. I need to ask you a tough question because I'm trying to learn more about this myself. As I think about raising the profile for human trafficking awareness, I think about all that the media has done in sort of bringing narratives to light that we might not have otherwise considered. And along with that, there tends to be now this sort of public concern that sometimes blanket accusations of human trafficking are made by others based on sort of suspicions that turn out to be unfounded. Right? You know this, right? They're are examples of women, typically white women, who issue sort of moral panics because someone looks at their child the wrong way at Target or the grocery store. But also, I know this is an issue of global significance. So you're an expert in this area. I really want to learn from you. How do we think about real danger, real exploitation, and then sort of isolate those instances where it might be a false moral panic? That probably works against the work that you do. Help me out.

Kelly Galloway

Absolutely works against the work that we do. It's like the boy that cried wolf.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Kelly Galloway

And so you paint these pictures of, this is trafficking. This is trafficking. No, that really might just be a pervert that really just wants, that might be a psychopath, that might be a murderer, it might be a rapist. And I'm not saying that.

Phil Wagner

Or a normal person. Maybe it's in your head, too, right?

Kelly Galloway

Yeah, it could be that. But you have to stop calling everything trafficking. Everything trafficking. It's literally a headache. So what we did for, I think, about five months, if people go to our social media or even our blog on our website, we did something called Misinformation Monday. We went through so many different this happened, this car seat, this zip tie, all this stuff, like people doing stuff just for likes. Just to get follows on TikTok. At the end of the day, what you do is you cause a public panic over something that really is not necessarily geared towards trafficking. Yes. I followed this one page yesterday, and I was really upset because, as anti-trafficking workers, we have a duty, and we have a responsibility to spread facts and not fear. Now, there are some things that I will say to make sure that you do that will help you be safer. I'm not going to promise that if you do this, nothing bad will ever happen to you.

Phil Wagner

No of course not.

Kelly Galloway

Nobody, regardless if you are a man or a woman, nobody should be walking down a busy street with both ear pods in their ear. You cannot hear around you. You don't know what's going on. These ear pods have noise-canceling abilities, so you don't even know. I lead a bike club, like a cycling club. We have about 600 700 members. And when I tell people, listen, you can bring a speaker, and you could wear an ear pod, but do not put two in. Because you cannot hear a horn, you cannot hear a siren. And I mean, as a woman, if you look at yourself as, hey, like, I don't feel necessarily super safe in certain places, then, yeah, get on the phone if you're by yourself that way, somebody knows where you are, or let somebody know there are ways to be safe. But just because somebody is following you around the store does not mean that they're a trafficker. Trafficking is the second-largest crime on the planet for a reason because it remains hidden.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, yeah.

Kelly Galloway

It remains hidden. So now, all of a sudden, your untrained eye can just pick up a trafficker anywhere. No, that could be a pervert. That could be somebody that I don't know. It could be a lot of different things, but it does not have to be trafficking. So I hate when people come out with these stories like, oh, my God, somebody tried to traffic me. How do you know that?

Phil Wagner

So it doesn't really do anything for you. In fact, it works against because then it turns out not to be true. It turns out to not be true. It turns out not to be true. And then when it is true, second largest happening, right? Then what? Then it all falls to you, and then it's a real crime. It's a real situation.

Kelly Galloway

But it also, I think, affects the mental health of it of everyday citizens. So now you have a mother who doesn't even want her child to go out and play. So now that child is inside, and they're just watching TV now, and then all of a sudden they get a diagnosis for ADHD, but it's really just because they're inside. Their mom is not letting them play outside. So they have screen fixation. They have dopamine levels because somebody spread fear. You know, like it trickles down, and it manifests in so many different ways. And then it's the overmedication of children who just need different types of stimulation. And so I want people to look at things in a holistic way, and that's how we look at it here. And so that's why we are very intent and very intentional rather, to spread facts and not fear. Send your kids outside and play, but do it in a safe way. You have ring doorbells, you have pets, you have fenced-in yards, or you can actually sit on the porch and read a book while they're playing.

Phil Wagner

From your phone. Right? Right. All right, so that's super helpful to me. I want to talk about another theme that I think about when I see you, and you're very clear about this. You're clear that Mona's house it's more than a shelter. Your work is more multi-dimensional than one thing. In many ways, you are this catalyst for restoration. I'm wondering what your work has taught you about healing and how we can adapt what you've learned to insights to support victims or survivors from all walks of life. I mean, you've been a healer in your community. You're from Buffalo, right? I mean, obviously, Buffalo has seen its own forms of tragedies in other ways beyond this, too. So talk to us about the role of healing in this process and how you help people who have experienced trauma find their way back to hope and to restoration.

Kelly Galloway

Guy, that's such a layered question.

Phil Wagner

I know. I'm so guilty of this. I asked 17 questions in one because I want to get everything out of you that I can.

Kelly Galloway

All right, so hope is like the precious jewel. Resilience is the blanket that covers and protects hope. What situations in life will do is try to chip at your resilience. Well, Kelly, what is resilience? Resilience is what gives you the opportunity to keep waking up, keep standing up. It is only when that blanket of resistance is chipped away that people can actually start or that your hope starts to deteriorate. And so at all costs, we do have to protect hope because hope is what keeps people dreaming. Hope is what keeps people going and makes people really believe that I can do something in my life. And so I think in terms to try to answer your question, Project Mona's House, prior to me starting it, I had already visited tons of shelters all around the world, like literally all around the world. And I found out things that I thought were beautiful and things that I was just like, this is actually not beneficial for staff or people. Then I realized that I don't want to build a place for survivors because I think that and that is what the book that I'm working on now and the curriculum I'm working on now is that survivorship is not the goal. But somewhere in translation, somewhere in history, we thought surviving was enough. And it's not. And it has never ever been enough. And it will never ever be enough. To survive literally means not to die. That's how you want to live your life every day. I'm just trying not to die. So when do you get to the point where you can actually thrive? When does that happen? And so that's why we say women come into Project Mona's House as victims. They're transformed into survivors. But by the time they leave, they are overcomers. Overcomers make history. Overcomers can help other people heal, can help other people overcome. That means what used to have power and authority over me, I now have power and authority over it. So when women Project Mona's House is not for everybody. And I hope I never ever, as long as I have breath in my body, paint that picture. It is not for everybody. Project Mona's House is literally a program that you have to agree to. And we are not doing the work for you. But when a woman comes, and she signs on the dotted line, she is saying, listen, I want to work on changing my life, and I'm inviting you, Project Mona's House people, to be a part of that journey. This is my journey. I'm just inviting you in. And I'm grateful that you're giving me a place to put my head while I'm doing it. This is not us doing the work. This is we are not the heroes in the story. The women are because they're doing the hard work because it takes courage and bravery to heal. It takes courage and bravery because sometimes, being a victim can be almost comforting. Because, oh my God, I can't believe this happened to you. Here, here, here. And so some people can get nestled into this place of, well, I'm a victim, I'm a victim. But it takes courage to say, you know what? That happened to me. But that's not who I am.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Kelly Galloway

And so for Project Mona's House, we have like eight pillars, right, where we focus on, and we believe that that is going to help the women achieve one goal. And our goal is that they'll be contributing and functioning members of society. But it takes sacrifice, and it takes bravery. And we are holistic. We are a holistic being. We are a holistic program for a multi-dimensional being. Like people are not just black and white. Because I'm going to be honest, when I first wrote the rules for Mona's House, Phil, and our policies and procedures, let me tell you how God worked it out. I was just like, oh, yeah, I'll open Project Mona's House. Everything is right here. These are all the forms. This is what the daily schedules look like. Here and I'm going go back overseas and do all my international work. It did not work like that. Why? Because we didn't have the money. I had to end up being the house mom. When I moved into Project Mona's House for that first year to be the house mom, I realized that all of our rules, all of our policies, and procedures were written for robots. They were not realistic. And so we had to go to the drawing board over and over and over again and every three months we go right back to the drawing board. Is this working? Is it not working? Can it work better? And we're in a different place now. We know better now. And so I think that our approach is holistic and our results are holistic.

Phil Wagner

You just give me chills every time you speak. Again you're just so bold and passionate about this message, and I so appreciate it. Tell me, Kelly, what are you the most proud of all the things that you've done? Speak to your work. What do you look back and be like? I'm proud of this. I've helped do this well. I've helped build this well. You've done so much.

Kelly Galloway

So if you would have asked me this question before I got my new therapist, the answer would be different. So if you were to ask me this question like three weeks ago, my answer would be different. But right now, as this date and this time today, I am most proud of myself. I am proud that despite everything that I've done, right and wrong, all the i's that I dotted and all the t's that I crossed and all the i's that I missed and all the t's I never even saw, I'm proud that I said yes to this work. Because I promise you, in so many days I'm just like, forget it. Like you all don't care. I don't care. You all don't want to fund this? All right, well then, forget it. But I'm proud of myself to get up every single day and just keep going because it is so easy to quit.

Phil Wagner

I believe that.

Kelly Galloway

It is very easy just to stop and to quit and to live as to live and not be alive. And it takes a lot of bravery to manage my own personal life and to do this work and to be responsible for more than I ever thought. And sometimes, it seems like the easiest thing to do is just go away, but it's not. And so I think that what I'm most proud of is the radical yes that I gave an extraordinary god to do this work every single day. And so I am at a space in my life where I am celebrating the yes that I have to give multiple times a day, every single day. And so I think that's what I'm most proud of right now.

Phil Wagner

So I have one final-ish question for you here, which is, you know, this podcast, our primary audience is people in the world of work doing DEI work in some way. And as we talk about modern-day slavery and human trafficking, can you speak to those people as to how we can better factor issues like this one into our diversity, equity, and inclusion work in the world of work? Any insights you can offer for us?

Kelly Galloway

So it's the same way everybody that's really close of our life works in that space. And so the same thing that I tell them is I think that number one, doing DEI work right now, is very important. And I hope that they're there because they realize that this work can literally change the psyche of man. It may not be able to change the heart, but you can open up people to new thought ideas and raise up new thought leaders. And I hope that this isn't just something that they are into because it's trending right now. A lot of companies are creating positions for this. But in order to really do this work, you have to address systemic issues that created the need for DEI specialists all around the nation and even world. So until we really get down to the root issues of why are spaces not diverse, why are spaces and processes and systems and corporations and policies and procedures and laws and legislation not equitable? Why are things not as inclusive as they should be? So I think as it relates to human trafficking, we have to understand, number one, why do people think that it's okay for people to be for sale? This country has been built on the backs of individuals who were victims of human trafficking. So it's literally in our DNA to expect much when giving little. And that's not just from Caucasian versus Black experience in this country. It is literally the mindset.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, yeah.

Kelly Galloway

And so we have to address that. Then when we're addressing issues as to human trafficking, we have to realize that human trafficking normally happens to people who are part of vulnerable populations. And so when you're addressing vulnerable populations, what can we do in these populations to make sure that they have a level playing field? What needs to happen with runaways and foster children? What needs to happen to individuals who are new to this country as refugees or undocumented internationals and seeking asylum? What needs to happen to individuals who abuse substances? Right. What needs to happen with individuals who literally just abuse social media and they don't have best practices? And so when we look at vulnerable populations as DEI experts, I would expect for a gift of strategy to come forth and for us to develop systems that can systems and ways of teaching. How can we go to schools and teach DEI as it relates to runaway children, foster children, and children of refugees in a way that's going to keep them safe and keep them protected? What are the rules about truancy? What kind of food? You got to think about it. Like in Buffalo, we're having an issue right now where I'm bringing all our DEI experts to address our school board because you have schools over here that have rotisserie chickens and asparagus and macaroni and cheese for lunch. Then you have a school with individuals from all around the city and county who are deemed as bad children, and all they get is a granola bar. So they're hungry. And so then they have more of an attitude, which means they don't go to school because they're hungry. And it's easier for them to sleep with somebody or to be out in the streets hustling and selling drugs because they're hungry when other kids get to go to school and get full meals.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Kelly Galloway

And so, why is that practice not equitable? And why is it not inclusive? And so I think it seems like little things like that that make a big difference. And so I would just say be more aware of your surroundings. On Project Mona's House website, once a month minus July and August, we always teach a few free human trafficking one-on-one class, find out about the vulnerable populations, and challenge yourself to say, you know what I want to attack one of these populations, and I'm going to write out a plan. And the people who, lord, I hate that term. But the people who have authority over this or some kind of say so in this plan over this population, and I'm going to present something to them. I'm going to do some real research. And all my DEI training, I'm going to actually make a difference. And you making a difference. You will have helped a vulnerable population be less susceptible to trafficking.

Phil Wagner

Oh, man. All right. That's so good. Final question, but this is the easiest one. What and where can our listeners go or do to support you? All the work that you're doing, people who are listening to this all across the nation, how can they support Project Mona's House? All the good work you're doing?

Kelly Galloway

Number one, go to our website, www.projectmonashouse.com and within 3 seconds of being on the website, fill in your email address. A little subscriber box is going to pop up, and that way, you can stay current. Follow us on all social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and then next week. We'll have a TikTok account.

Phil Wagner

All right. Exciting. Kelly, thank you so much. I know you're not after accolades or a cape or congratulations for the work that you do, but really, thank you for that work. It's so impactful to watch from afar. You've educated me here, and thank you for educating our listeners. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Kelly Galloway

Thank you for having me.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What are some misconceptions about doing DEI work in a day-to-day formal capacity
• How just being a good person does not lead to equity
• How to find and focus on impactful DEI work
• What are the best practices when managing workers toward impactful DEI outcomes
• How best to know when to push harder in the DEI space and when to relax
• How to know when you're ready to take on a DEI leadership role
• What to do when grappling with race and identity elements while approaching DEI work
• The importance of staying tuned in to local politics and its impact

Transcript

Liz Stigler

And maybe it's unfair of me to ask people to stay tuned in, but I think when you tune out, that is how structural systems of inequity persist and get bigger is by people not paying attention.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Have you ever been in a room full of people, and suddenly the reality sets in you're not the smartest person in the room? This happens to me more often than I care to admit, but it happened every single time I found myself in the same room as today's guest. Liz Stigler and I had the opportunity to take a number of graduate courses together at the University of Kansas, Rock Chalk Jayhawk OKU. She is that person that everyone wanted to buddy up with when it came time for partner work or group work. And I'm super stoked that we could buddy up today for an extended conversation. Liz isn't just the smartest person in the room. She's out there doing the real work. She currently serves as the Inaugural Director of the Community Equity Research Center for the Chinese American Service League. There she leads the development and implementation of CASL's formal DEIA efforts, including in community development and programming in areas that advance social change. I'm so excited to connect with her here. Liz, welcome to our podcast. I'm sure that I've gotten something wrong about your bio. Can you tell our listeners maybe a little bit more about who you are and what you do every day at CSL?

Liz Stigler

Absolutely. I appreciate the generous but totally false introduction. I am rarely the smartest person in the room, and certainly not when we were in classes together, but it's kind of you to flatter me. So on this podcast, yes, I am the Director of CERC at Chinese American Service League. We call it CASL. It's a lot of words. CASL is the largest ANHPI, which is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander serving nonprofit in the Midwest. We have about 600 employees. We've been here for 44 years, and in 2021, we served about 6,000 individual clients. So we're a direct nonprofit service provider. Cradle-to-grave kind of services, right? So early childhood, head start, and head start all the way through in-home care and adult day services and everything in between. Yeah. And that's what I do. As you mentioned, as Director of CERC, I oversee those three areas of sort of our external equity and inclusion efforts, our government policy efforts, and our Anti Hate Action Center, which is one of three in the nation. There's New York, Oakland, and us. And that is made possible through partnership with the Asian American Foundation and that was just launched last fall. So we are still in the first year of the Action Center. But yeah, that's what falls under CERC's umbrella.

Phil Wagner

Fantastic. And I know you're helming those efforts. And yes, there's some well-placed flattery there, but also sincerity in that I know you to be somebody who asks really critical questions and always digs deeper. And so that's where I sort of want to guide our conversation today. You're doing the business of DEIA work every single day. DEI work, broadly speaking, often gets a bad rep. And I think you and I would probably both say that we've kind of dunked on the DEI industrial complex a time or two ourselves. So as someone who's out there doing this work, I'm wondering, can you clarify maybe some of the biggest misconceptions people have about doing DEI work in a day-to-day formal capacity?

Liz Stigler

Yes, we have dunked on it with good reason. I think we should continue to dunk on it.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Liz Stigler

Industrial complex. I was speaking I was a keynote at Roosevelt University's Laker Leadership Summit last month, and I talked about diversity industrial complex. I think some of the misconceptions that I see most often are that DEI or DEIA or DEIB or sort of broadly inclusion efforts are just sort of a nice-to-have addition, right? So it's like a little like, well, we can just let kool aid stir and mix. And if there's time, if we have resources, then we can do that diversity stuff. But that's not the main focus of whatever it is. Our agency, our business, our organization. It's thought of as this sort of like the sprinkles on top. And I'm sure, as you know, that's not really the case, right? I mean, I am fond of saying equity is everyone's responsibility because really it is. And so I see that a lot. I also see, and it's strange because, of course, you want to encourage people, wherever they are in their journeys to critical consciousness, so trying not to shut anybody down. But I see this assumption a lot that the work of equity and inclusion is just about being a good person. And if you can support or encourage somebody to just be kind, be a good person, that that will get us to equity.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Liz Stigler

And it won't. I mean, it won't, right? It's great. I think you should be a good person. You should be kind to the capacity that you can be kind and hold your own boundaries. But that will not bring us to structural equity, right?

Phil Wagner

That's it.

Liz Stigler

It will not bring systemic change. And so I see those two a lot that, like, diversity is kind of like, well, when we get all our other things in order, then maybe we can add in that diversity. And also this kind of like, well, it's just about being a good person. Those are the things I think I see most often.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Okay, good. So you're somebody who I know to stand by some deeply held values and commitment to justice, to equity, to belonging, to inclusion. And as someone who has no problem critiquing the problematic facets of the DEI enterprise. If you're giving advice to our listeners, many of whom are really interested in doing the work that you do. Advice on how to sort of sniff out or identify really valuable and impactful DEI opportunities versus those sort of surface-level or performative or optic opportunities. How did you find yourself into doing DEI work that has impact to the degree that you have?

Liz Stigler

That's a great question. Well, I know I think this is the pros and cons. I think of the diversity industry blossoming as it is, is that there are a lot more opportunities, right? So that's great because that means more space for more practitioners to bring the message or the content to wider audiences. But it also means, as you say, there is a much greater landscape that's not always earnest or authentic.

Phil Wagner

Or consistent, right?

Liz Stigler

Or consistent.

Phil Wagner

Who's not reading from the same book?

Liz Stigler

I mean, this is right. This is just basically one of the things we did at CASL here for the first time last year when I joined, was we did our internal DEIA assessment for the first time. And a big thing about doing that and talking through the results is, like, there aren't universal benchmarks I can't go and look at. Oh, well, nationally, the employee engagement score for work from home is this. I can't look at a national aggregate score for, like, equity. Right. So the metrics are very complex, which I digress. That is not the actual question. That's just my fussing about it.

Phil Wagner

That's important, though.

Liz Stigler

So I think when you're looking at opportunities and feel free to let me know if this is something your students are telling you about or thinking or if folks who you know you are working with are seeing. I think some of the things to be aware of, for me to know if an opportunity is going to be useful and generative, is like, where does it sit in the organization? Right. Does this report to the Chief Operating Officer or the CEO, or the Chief Administrative Officer? Or does this role report to a manager five steps down? So would this role be that mid-level management or that coordinator level in that you have three or four folks in between you and the executive leadership team? And that is really critical. I think because that will indicate to you how much influence you have to really impact systemic change, right? If you're someone who has that reporting directly to the executive team, ideally, you're able to influence what sort of the metrics look like. What does training look like? You can have that direct conduit, even if it's a dotted line of reporting.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Liz Stigler

But if you're all the way sort of stuck in the middle of a sandwich somewhere and you have four people just to get your idea up to leadership. It is going to be arduous. And not always, but often, I think that indicates that the commitment is either not earnest, like the company's commitment to DEI is either not earnest, or it's not fully understood. And so it could take you the better part of years to move up to wherever you should have started at. So I think that's something I think about.

Phil Wagner

The whole passion project a la carte model is not just problematic structurally. It's problematic for those folks seeking out those opportunities because often those passion projects are going to fall often in an unpaid or service capacity to queer folks, people of color, women, and it just further problematizes the very thing we're here to help address.

Liz Stigler

Absolutely, for sure. I think another thing I think about is how well resourced is the role, right? So is there a budget? Right. Do you, as whoever you are, if you're leading the DEI efforts, is there a budget for those efforts? If there's a committee, is there a budget for the committee? Are folks who are serving on the committee going to be compensated for time? Or is there another sort of flex option there? Other resources, just generally your own professional development, right? Like, are you if you're often if you're a mighty team of one? That's usually been my experience as a DEI practitioner. This is the first time I've ever led a team. And they're not all focused on DEi, right? It's a team of folks working on anti-hate, community engagement, government. If you're a team of one, what resources are available to you, and what's sort of the full commitment there? Is it good, I think, a good indicator if you're looking for an opportunity that's going to be useful? And I also think asking, why now? Why did this opportunity emerge from your organization at this time? And if it's in response to, like, oh, well, we said something problematic, and the Internet came for us. Right.

Phil Wagner

Right. Yeah, the reactionary model.

Liz Stigler

Exactly. Then you're walking into a very different situation other than, like, for example, the reason my position was created, the reason the Community Equity Research Center was created was because last spring, in light of the Atlantic Spa shootings, Board of Directors said, we're tired of just thoughts and prayers. We want to create an actual measurable change. We want to resource it, and we want to really put our substantial long-term efforts behind it. And so, CERC was created. My role, which I came in as the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility Officer, and then was promoted to Director in February. So I came into an organization that saw consistent tragedy after tragedy right the 339% increase in anti-Asian hate over the past two years. So that was concerted effort that propelled the organization to implement our DEIA efforts. But if you're going into somewhere that's doing it because of a lawsuit or because of sort of internet shaming or because of some sort of otherwise not great publicity situation. It's going to be different. It's going to be a really different vibe. And not that it's good or bad, but I think to know if you're stepping in as a solution to a problem that's very different than you're stepping in as a proactive, you're on the leading edge, not the bleeding edge of creating these programs.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, proactive versus reactive PR is going to look very different. Right. So the same, of course, applies to DEI work. We're talking a little bit about getting people in the door. What about developing people? So you're there often DEI leaders, mentor, shape, guide, and sculpt people who they work laterally or who might fall beneath them within the organizational structure. So how do you sort of inspire a commitment to real change, to real outcomes in the DEI space, maybe among those who are sort of skeptical of that DEI industrial complex, maybe from all sides? I mean, how do you actually shape people so that you're shaping people towards realistic and impactful outcomes?

Liz Stigler

Yeah, that's the big work, isn't it? That shaping, and I think this is where it's useful to draw a distinction or to think about diversity, equity, inclusion efforts in the workplace versus just generally in society because they're different. And your capacity to affect change is going to be very different in one of those realms versus the other. So if I'm thinking about like my professional sort of DEI practitioner hat in a workplace, I think what I think about is not necessarily changing hearts and minds, right? Like, yes, of course, I would love to be able to influence the way someone thinks or feels about something, but ultimately that's not really what I care about. What I care about is how do you behave and how are your actions specifically in the context of the workplace. Right. I might not ever be able to convince you that gender-neutral pronouns are relevant, are authentic, are useful. Right. You might always think that they are absolutely just annoying and foolish and that those people should just get over it. But if I can get you to consistently use gender-neutral pronouns in our workplace, if I can get you to be respectful of folks who use those pronouns in our workplace, then that, for me, feels successful. Right. And I think that is where in the workplace, but again, I don't think that that's socially outside of the workplace. Of course, I want the hearts and minds change, but in just the boundary of professional space, if you can get people to change their actions and behavior and the way that you think that I think that needs to be done. And I think when you see the most successful efforts is that it has to be something that can be metricized and assessed, right? And that there has to be consistent training behind that. And not to just say that training is the ultimate. That's how we get to diversity. Because it's not just training, but it's like one of the things we talk about here a lot is thinking about direct communication, right? So how do you metricize that? What does that look like if you put it on your annual performance evaluation? Right? How do you evaluate if someone is engaging in direct communication from an equity and inclusion standpoint? And then that becomes part of how you are evaluated at work. Right, so that's, I think, a big part of it really trying to change those behaviors, trying to change the action, I think, is where I tend to put my focus. I don't know. What do you think?

Phil Wagner

You know, what I think is that you're speaking to one of the most nuanced and significant issues that we don't talk enough about in this space. You're hitting a really sort of personal area for me, which is how do I reconcile my social justice orientations writ large to needing to be able to move the needle forward within very rigid structures and organizations where that social justice orientation may not fly. And so I think that leads to a lot of imposter syndrome that's one of the catalysts for burnout. It just leads to a lot of emotions for me of, like, okay, how do I reconcile these? And am I making concessions? Am I conceding my values? And I think that's a really tough space to play in as a DEI practitioner. Because obviously, your goal is to push. I mean, that's what you do in this. You push in this industry. Yes, you measure, but those outcomes or outcomes you often have to push towards. And I think to me the biggest thing I end up thinking about is, am I pushing far enough, or am I pushing too far? It's trying to find that balance. That's what I think as I hear you talk about those things.

Liz Stigler

Yeah, absolutely. I feel you for sure. And I think it's, I don't know if this is just what grad school does to you, but I think it's that balance of, like, it doesn't have to be all one or the other. Right. I feel like we're very conditioned to be like, I'm all in doing this thing, or I'm not doing it at all.

Phil Wagner

Right, yeah.

Liz Stigler

And I think it's more of a negotiation around like, well, is that always true? Is that always useful? What can you do that is going to be the most impactful in the space that you're in? And I think we've talked about this a little bit, but it's about creating those structures and systems, right? So beyond just fun celebrations or having a potluck that makes people feel good about Hispanic Heritage Month or whatever sort of these one-off events, right? Having a film festival for Women's History Month, like, sure, those are great, but I really think if you're thinking about creating that impactful change. It's about those behaviors, those actions, and systems, right? So what's the strategy for recruitment, retention, promotion, development? What's the strategy for making sure that the workplace is accessible both physically but? Also, do you have a flexible work policy or whatever your other sort of options are? I think it's not just about having one-off trainings or, like, oh yeah, one time we did a racial justice workshop, so we're good now. It has to be both that training and the real systems change where I think that creates impact.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I agree. I think it's the stuff that you don't put out on a flyer or a poster. It's the day-to-day stuff that is the toughest stuff. It's not very sexy or tantalizing. It's not going to draw a lot of attention, but that is often the most impactful to leading to those outcomes. Let's rewind just a little bit and talk about pushing, if you wouldn't mind because I want to talk about how you have figured out how to sort of read the room. As a DEI practitioner, how do you know? Haha, here's where I can push a little, or how do you know, okay, I need to just sort of step back a little bit. That's such rich, nuanced emotional intelligence that's required there. How do you know how to make those concessions without sacrificing values and how do you know where to push without pushing too far too fast?

Liz Stigler

Yeah. So the first thing I would say is I don't know that I have a good formula for this, right? So if someone else out there, a listener, has perfected the, like, I know exactly when to push and when not to push, I would invite them to email you, and then you can pass it on to me.

Phil Wagner

Share broadly. You got it?

Liz Stigler

Right. So with that said, this is an imperfect whatever that I do. And I think maybe this is also where I see a lot of more inexperience, just in like sort of junior colleague DEI practitioners, come into an organization really excited, really hot, really ready to do a lot of change. The organization is not actually ready for that. They hired this person because it sounded great, and they were excited. And they get told this person right, gets told no at every turn, and it burns them out. Right. And I think that is a disservice that the diversity industrial complex is doing to, especially our younger colleagues, our colleagues of color, right? These younger folks who are coming out of programs ready to apply the lessons they've learned, and they just get turned and burned by the diversity industrial complex over and over. So I think for me, what I think about, I'm a very strategic thinker, so I really try to think about, okay, is pushing on this issue, is going further on this, what am I going to potentially gain from pushing further? Right. Is what I am going to gain either is it a moral, ethical imperative, right? Like, is this something that I absolutely cannot work at an organization if we don't do X, Y, or Z? Then that's pretty clear for me. Outside of that, it's that strategy of, okay, if I push on this, what ultimately am I hoping that I get from it, right? Where is the best place we could end up if I keep pushing on this? And does that potentially outweigh the negative sort of accumulation of top scum that could happen if I push on this, right? To illustrate that point, when I was hired here, my final round interview, which was with our CEO and my now boss, our COO, I told my CEO if you hire me for this job. We're going to have conversations you don't want to have, right? And he hired me. And true to his word, he has, right. And there have been a number of times over the past year that I've been like, okay, Paul, we're going to have one of those conversations. And so I think it's, for me, being pretty transparent and upfront, either when I was freelancing as a DEIA consultant or in a full-time role of, like, listen, I just need you to know right now there are going to be times where I'm really going to bring to you conversations and issues that you probably wish we wouldn't talk about. But we're going to have to talk about them. And so I think I try to strike the balance there between like, okay, this is something we really need, or this is something we should have done a long time ago. We're not yet at a place where is going to be useful or is going to be. We're just not there yet. And sometimes that's really disappointing. That's a real boner killer for me. A lot of the time is like, wow, I wish that we were here, and I really want us to be here, but you got to run or walk before you run. And so if you're trying to do that too quickly, you can end up it can backfire really spectacularly. And I think that maybe is worse. Right. Rolling something out, pushing too far on something that's not fully realized, that people are not bought into, that there's not an affinity for, and then you roll it out, and it blows up in your face. And that, I think, is worse. So, yeah. I don't know. I feel like I don't have a great system. How do you balance? When do you know when to push and when to take a knee?

Phil Wagner

So the only thing I can say that sort of riffs off some of your themes are the subtext of what you say is to kind of lead with humanity, being honest enough with your people to say, look, I'm not here to make you feel good. I am here to push. We're going to have to have tough conversations, but any good organization knows how to lead from their values framework. And so, I only affiliate with organizations who make those values clear and demonstrate how they walk them out. And I can always point back to that to say no. I mean, here, for instance, belonging is one of our core values. Flourishing is one of our core values. So if I'm sensing in the classroom and student success initiatives that students of color, queer kids are not flourishing at the same rate, our values have been compromised. So we need to have that tough conversation. And so, to me, it's not pointing a finger and saying you're wrong. You dropped the ball. This is horrific. It's saying, look, we're on the same page. Let's take it back to values. Let's figure out how we can have a tough conversation to acknowledge the realities so we can make those values come to life. And again, I don't have a formula, which is why I'm always asking, what do you do? Because I'm going to write it down. And I think part of being in this space is not always knowing exactly how to move forward. That's why I get sort of wary and concerned about just the number of DEI consultants that are sort of manifesting themselves without quality training, without deep theoretical knowledge, without training in change management because it becomes very messy very quick, and this is too important to drop the ball.

Liz Stigler

Yeah, that's something that I struggle with, too. Is far be it for me to suggest that you need a Ph.D. to do this work because you don't, right? Like, for sure, you don't. And I think, in a lot of ways, a Ph.D. is not useful or worth it.

Phil Wagner

I'm with you.

Liz Stigler

But I feel like because there is no standard curriculum or training for what it means to be doing this work, and like, yeah, there are some pop-up, like diversity certificates. I've heard that some are more rigorous than others. I can't attest because I haven't personally gone through any of them, but I think it's that lack of standardization or consistency or just like, what is it? When is that label, right of like, okay, I am a DEI practitioner, or I can market myself as a consultant? When do you know that you have arrived at that point? And again, not to say that anyone needs a formal degree of any kind to do this work, but I think I get similarly concerned or wary of, like, are you not only prepared from an intellectual standpoint but, like, the emotional labor required to do this work every day? Right. And to do it on a sustained basis to do it, especially if you're someone who occupies a dimension of an identity that's marginalized, like, to do this work and show up is very draining and really can take it out of you.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Liz Stigler

I struggle with, like, okay, do we need a more, I don't know, centralized. I don't want to say a course of curriculum, but some sort of like, okay, this is what it means. These are the areas of focus that you need to demonstrate acuity in before you can be a consultant. But I don't know.

Phil Wagner

And I'm with you. I have so many competing tensions here, too. There's an OSHA manual, right? Like, we know the OSHA regulations to make workplaces safe. Shouldn't there be something similar? But then I know what would happen is if we had one, probably you and I would get back on and be like, look at these power structures that have manifested themselves. How much money are they making? I don't know. I do think there has to be some deeper level knowledge structures or consistency because I see a lot of young, passionate social justice advocates, and there's a place this is not to diminish that going into this line of work as a consultant, never having been in organizations or working with an organizational change, suspecting that it's just going to be sort of a pushback against a conservative rhetoric. And, you know, this work can actually sort of disenfranchise folks from all sides because you can be sort of a white savior model, and you're not helping what you came in to help either. So there's tensions from all sides. And so, to me, there's deeper theoretical strains that must sort of be invoked necessarily in this space. And so, yeah, I don't know. I'm skeptical like you are. I'm going to talk about some of those identity tensions if you wouldn't mind. So this DEI space is complicated, and it's a context where multiple identity elements might enhance or complicate our work. And I'm wondering if you have any insights on whiteness, specifically. Self-identified white guy here. Right. And I know that DEI obviously goes beyond issues of race, but I have a lot of competing tensions about being a white person who is leading DEI initiatives. I'm sometimes compensated for some of that work. I'm sometimes acknowledged or awarded for that work, and I don't always know how to grapple with that if I'm being completely honest. So do you have any thoughts as a DEI practitioner on how we can sort of grapple with those identity elements and how they might shape or complicate or enhance our DEI work? I'm asking you all the tough questions, Liz, because I was like, of course, I am.

Liz Stigler

No, it's just I was just the audio. But yes, as a white misgender female, this is something I think about a lot as well and something that I weighed very heavily before stepping into the role that I have now. Whether really should I be one to be leading these efforts? I think there are some days where I still feel like, oh, yeah, no, I'm not qualified for this. This shouldn't be me. And then some days where it's better, and you feel more confident. I think one of the things that I think about and one of the reasons I do the work that I do is because, as a queer person with an invisible disability, this work is deeply personal to me. It directly affects the way I move through the world, the structures that do or do not oppress me. But also, as I mentioned, as a white person, as misgender white female, I feel like I am called to the work because it's my responsibility to leverage my privilege in situations where I can do so. Right? And so I think for me, a lot of acknowledging or working through what it means to be a white person in this space is acknowledging that right. Like, acknowledging that my identity, my racial identity as a white person, means that I do not know what it means to move through the world as a person of color. Right. I don't have that experience. And so when I am working on DEI-related issues, I always try to amplify the perspectives and voices, and experiences of folks whose lived identities are different from mine. And when I'm in rooms where those folks are not, how do I make sure that that need or that experience is still at the table? Right? How do I do right by the people who are not in the room? And I also think there's something to be said about white people doing the work of DEI in particularly or predominantly white spaces. Right. So do we need to have someone who's a person of color exploiting their identity just for the benefit of all the white people in the organization? Right. So, no, I think that's a place where, especially if you are a white DEI practitioner in a white space, you have the burden to really pull your team along. You can hold people's feet to the fire in a way that I think when you're a white person working in spaces with people of color or communities of color, that is a different experience. And knowing when you can and should use the privileges, the tools, the resources at your disposal to amplify the work that's already being done is really critical. It's hard. I think also, and I think this is where I get into the bigger confusion, the bigger tension around, like, well, okay, is it all about identity politics? Right? Does it have to happen to you for it to matter to you?

Phil Wagner

So good.

Liz Stigler

I think it doesn't. Right. I think a big part of, like, it doesn't and it shouldn't. And also, the assumption that just because someone occupies a particular identity does not make them more or less qualified to do this work. Right. I know a lot of queer people who should not be doing this work because they're just, like, terrible at acknowledging other non-white queer identities. I don't think membership in a specific identity category qualifies you to be a better or worse practitioner. I think as we talked about that training, the location in intersectional social justice, being attuned to the community needs around you. Those are the best ways you can ground yourself in the work. Yeah.

Phil Wagner

That's so perfect. There's such a succinct answer that really grapples with so many dimensionalities, and I think it really clarifies. There's a space for everyone but read the room. Think about how you're moving about that space, how you're occupying power and privilege in that space, what you're doing with that power and privilege in that space. Wonderful insights. Okay, so four rapid-fire questions to conclude our interview today. Really quick, but we really do want to glean from your insights as a DEI practitioner. So I've just got four, and I'll go through them. I want to know, first and foremost, what lights your fire? I mean, what really motivates you? You talk about this work being difficult. I know this work is difficult. There's a lot of emotional labor. What lights your fire and motivates you to do this day in and day out?

Liz Stigler

It depends on which day you catch me. I have the belief, right, that we can work towards collective liberation and that if we're not in it together, working towards that struggle, we won't get there. Right. And it's a lifelong struggle. The work is lifelong. Right.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Liz Stigler

It started before I showed up. It's going to continue long after I shuffle off this mortal coil. But I firmly believe that it is the responsibility, especially those of us who have privileged positions, to be agitators and co-conspirators and really doing this. So that belief that something better than this, like capitalist hellscape, is possible is what propels me most days. And a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee.

Phil Wagner

I'm with you. I'm drinking as we record.

Liz Stigler

Right now.

Phil Wagner

Right, together. All right, so flip side. What pisses you off the most about working in this space? Like, what just gets your goat?

Liz Stigler

The whole world. I think it's like seeing that in 2022, people are still using the business case to justify diversity.

Phil Wagner

Say that for this podcast. Say it louder. Yes.

Liz Stigler

Right. And no shade. I understand. Right.

Phil Wagner

It's one part.

Liz Stigler

In this school.

Phil Wagner

I got you.

Liz Stigler

But I think that we are still so far into the research, and we have now decades, decades upon decades from the first compliance space, diversity program, the 1999 Coca-Cola lawsuit. It might not have been 99, but from that place to now and that people are still using. Right. Like the business case, is endlessly annoying to me. And I think, again, we talked about this before, but just the fact that a lot of diversity is thought of as an add-on, or just a thing we can just sprinkle on later and, like, it's not the actual work, it's the stuff we do once the actual work of our business is done, then we can do the diversity stuff. And that is endlessly just pisses me right the f off. Because if it's not baked into the foundation of your work, right? If you're not building equity and inclusion from the go, if it's not in the strategic plan, if it's not in the mission vision, values, if it's not in the core guiding principles, then it's nothing. It's garbage. Right? And so those are two things I think that really annoy me most quickly.

Phil Wagner

All right, so similar to question one. When the going does get tough, you're in the thick of it, and you're hearing all of the business case for DEI, but nobody's actually putting in the work. What centers you? Like, what brings you back? I think that's sort of a similar theme but a little bit different. What keeps you where you are?

Liz Stigler

You know, I think. Right? I take solace in one of my favorite liberation strategists, Mariame Kaba says hope is a discipline. Right? And so, for me, I remind myself that it is a discipline. And so when it feels like there's no progress, when it's not fast enough, when we're rolling back something, we said we were going to do, and now we're rolling it back. When you think that something is clear and then you run into the same roadblocks again and again, I think it's that reminder of being disciplined and still seeing that vision for the future, still having that hope is work. And I also think about if I leave, if I'm not doing the work, then someone else is going to have to pick it up, and like, it doesn't just stop. So those are the things I try to remind myself of. But for sure, a lot of angry car rides home, angry gym sessions, just like real. Lots of getting that out.

Phil Wagner

All right, so final question of the day. You're out there. You're doing the work, the real work, the tough work. Tell it to us straight. What can everyday people or everyday leaders do to make your job, to make your life as a DEI practitioner easier?

Liz Stigler

Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I think not tuning out, by which I mean I see this a lot, and I'm not sure if you do too, but people who are just like, oh, I don't watch the news because it's so depressing, or well, I don't really follow politics because it's just so everyone's corrupt and it's so sad and it's so negative. And if you have the option to not listen to the news or not listen to politics, you already occupy a space of privilege because whatever you're telling me is what's on the news, and what politicians are doing does not impact my day-to-day. Therefore, I give myself permission to check out of it. And I'm not saying compost your mental health at the expense of being constantly plugged in. Like, I'm not saying doom scroll, none of that. But if you're not paying attention to what is happening on a consistent level, not just national federal policies, but your older men, right or older people, your ward representatives, your commissioners. If you're not paying attention to what's being done at that level and what's happening on the news, you're not really being an actionable partner or co-conspirator in this work. And I know that's hard and can feel overwhelming, and maybe it's unfair of me to ask people to stay tuned in, but I think when you tune out, that is how structural systems of inequity persist and get bigger is by people not paying attention. And so I think if that is something that you feel you can safely engage with and have the capacity to engage with, especially folks who may have more privilege in certain dimensions of identity, I would strongly encourage you to stay plugged in and stay attentive.

Phil Wagner

That's so good. I think a challenge for all of us while you remain willfully blindfolded. What structures, what power structures, what systems are being built? I think that's such a great challenge, a great way to conclude. Liz, I love everything you do. I love everything you share. Thank you for bringing me back to good old KU days, grad seminar days. It's wonderful to have a conversation with you here, my friend. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Liz Stigler

Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Always nice to see you. Thank you for having me.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• The role comfort zones play in the DEI space
• What elements of comfort zones are difficult to break out from
• How to measure if a person is pushed far enough out of their comfort zone
• How to avoid diversity fatigue
• Is it possible to push people too hard and fast out of their comfort zones
• What is the difference between being right vs. being effective
• Why it's important to include white men in DEI work
• How to push the DEI industrial complex out of its own comfort zone

Transcript

Brittany Boone

My appeal to people in the D&I space would be this work is too important for you to not take it seriously. It's too important. It's so important. Like, people's livelihoods. Like, this is too important.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Today I'm joined by a true friend, somebody who I have known for the better part of gosh over a decade now, and I'm so excited to have a conversation with today. Brittany Boone, or Doctor Brittany Boone, I should say, has over a decade of experience in DEI work. She's a trained industrial and organizational psychologist and began much of her DEI work in the insurance industry, particularly for Farmers Insurance, which is my insurance company. So I'm hoping I get the discount by name-dropping. Just kidding. She was a founding member of the Olathe chapter of the Black Professionals Alliance, ERG, in Olathe, Kansas. She's now a consultant for ValloKarp in New York City, doing amazing work. Boots on the ground. Brittany Boone, it is an honor to chat with you here. I'm so excited to catch up with you, my friend.

Brittany Boone

Dr. Phil. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to see you. That was the best bio I've ever heard.

Phil Wagner

Are you sure? Did I botch it in any way? You can tell our listeners more if you want to.

Brittany Boone

No, that is perfect. That's perfect. I wouldn't even add anything that's perfect. You said all the names right? All of that.

Phil Wagner

All right. Awesome. So, Dr. Boone, here's what I want to talk about today. I'm hoping we can have a conversation on comfort zones because I know that this is something that you can really speak to. Well, I mean, as a woman of color in DEI consulting, you challenge people on certain to push past their comfort zone. So let's have a conversation about comfort zones in the DEI space. First up, can you give us insights into how you, as a DEI consultant, sort of see comfort zones and the role they play in moving forward or maybe even not moving forward? The needle on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Any thoughts on comfort zones?

Brittany Boone

Yes, I have a lot of thoughts on comfort zones. So I think that the comfort zones are the thing that is the determining factor of how far we're going to go. In my opinion, that's what I've seen, and sort of this tendency to want to avoid going outside of them, and we want to maintain our comfortability in all of these conversations. And we can talk about D&I, but if I'm uncomfortable, like, let's get out. That's what I've seen. And I often tell people when I'm doing workshops and things like that, I always tell people, if you feel uncomfortable, you're doing it right, so keep going in that direction, go in the direction of your discomfort. Because I think that's what we all have to do. Because I think if we look at people who are members of historically excluded, which I use intentionally, I don't say represented historically excluded groups.

Phil Wagner

I like that.

Brittany Boone

Yeah, I saw that on Instagram, I think, somewhere.

Phil Wagner

No, I really like that, and I'm going to change how I say that because I typically say historically underrepresented, but you're right. Historically excluded.

Brittany Boone

Underrepresented, it sounds really passive. It's like, oh, they just happen to.

Phil Wagner

Not that's good. Language matters groups.

Brittany Boone

They don't have an option to not be uncomfortable. Like, people are experiencing racial trauma sometimes at work. It's being one of one in your workplace, in your department, on the floor of your building. That can be a lot. And that you don't have an option to say, well, I don't want to be uncomfortable today. You have to press through. You have to adjust. You have to adapt. And so I think we all need to be uncomfortable to some extent, even when we're talking about things that aren't DEI-related. There's the thing the saying that growth doesn't happen in your comfort zone. You have to get out of it.

Phil Wagner

Right?

Brittany Boone

I think we got to destroy those and get outside of those, for sure.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. No, I agree. And again, I love that language. So thank you for clarifying there. I think language is so important. As a consultant, I'm certain that you have many conversations with people that know they ought to push outside of those comfort zones but just haven't done so yet. What are the most significant elements of those comfort zones that are sort of the hardest to chisel away at, to break ground, actually move the needle forward? What are the elements of comfort zones that are really difficult to grapple with?

Brittany Boone

I think that, so I'm going to say this first part, and then I'll say the second part, and I'm going to apologize before I say the second part because it might take us in a different direction.

Phil Wagner

That's all right. Go for it.

Brittany Boone

First part of what I will say is I think that one of the biggest parts of people's comfort zones is challenging their perception of themselves. And so it's like if I do this, and this is what I'm doing, and this is the impact of my actions, then that means I'm not a good person anymore. And so I don't want to look at that. People sort of connect DEI stuff to their goodness as a person, and to there, I've always been this, and it's the Obama effect. They say I voted for Obama, and you can vote for Obama, and you can still do racially problematic things, even though and people don't want to look at that. And so I think that, to me, that's the biggest thing. It's like being able to look at your actions and say, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. But because racism is a system that we all live in.

Phil Wagner

It's all of us, like even the most woke right or the most advanced people, who have been in this journey for years or decades. You are not exempt from that self-reflective process. It's for everybody.

Brittany Boone

Everybody. And so the second part that I was saying that I was sort of offering a pre-apology for was, as I was thinking about the last few days, just thinking about comfort zones. I was thinking about how, when you talk about age. No one gets really uncomfortable talking about age. No one gets uncomfortable talking about if we have a group of neurotypical people asking them to talk about a population that's neurodivergent. That's not really uncomfortable. There's usually these moments, like, there's a moment where it's like, oh, shoot, I didn't think of that. Or, yeah, there's a moment, but there's not necessarily discussion of a comfort zone. That discussion of that comfort zone comes along with race.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, you're not kidding.

Brittany Boone

Only race. Because that's the one where people are like, I didn't mean that. That's not what I said. And I'm still a good person, and I voted for Obama, and my mom didn't raise me that way. No.

Phil Wagner

I got friends who are black. How could you?

Brittany Boone

Yeah, I'm married to a black man. Like all of those things, that's the interesting part is being able to get people to see that it's a system that we live in, and it doesn't feel all the time, doesn't feel great to know that we've participated in the system. But to your point, we all have, like, even people of color. Even me.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, of course.

Brittany Boone

There's this story I often tell when I'm doing workshops because I'm a talker. Clearly, you know that about me. I'm a talker, tell stories. There was this one time I was on a plane a few years ago. I was on this plane, and I had a black pilot, and it was only the third black pilot I've seen in my lifetime. Literally, I've only seen three. And it was the very first time I was on a plane piloted by a black person. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I felt so proud. I even told him when I was getting on the plane, I was like, oh, my gosh. I felt it was just such a heartwarming moment for me to see him. And so I was just I couldn't wait to tell my friends. And so I think I was flying to Atlanta or something like that. And so I saw Park Field, Jackson, I saw the airport, and we flew right by it, and I was like, I hope he knows what he's doing. There was this thought that I had in my head, like, I hope he knows what he's doing. And then I was like, why would I say that? Why would I think I hope he knows what he's doing? He's flying an airplane. Like, he's not there by accident. He knows what he's doing. But it's because I did not see your standard, run-of-the-mill, middle-aged white man flying this plane. My brain is like, that's not who flies planes. And so even me. I'm a black woman. I'm a diversity and inclusion consultant. I do this for a living. I talk about this all day, every day. I live it, and I still have that thought. And so we're not responsible for our first thought, our first thought. We're programmed. We're receiving messages from the time we are born about who is capable and qualified, and competent. We're always receiving those messages. And so we have to be intentional. You're not responsible for your first thought. You're responsible for your second. That's what we tell people.

Phil Wagner

Oh, that's so good.

Brittany Boone

It's like, I had to be like, but I think oftentimes when people have those thoughts, they try to tuck them away, and they're like, and I didn't think that or that's because this, and then they rationalize it, as opposed to being like, wow, I thought that. So let me be intentional about pivoting and say, this is why I thought that, and then keep it moving. But you don't have to. I'm not a bad person because of it. And I think people just don't like that to be challenged.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Your misgivings or your small failures aren't a moral indictment. Right. It's not that you are above recovery, but you can't possibly work to overwrite those microaggressive thoughts without that self-reflection. I think that's so good, and there's so much guilt, I think, slow baked into how we arrive to the DEI space. And I think that's something we kind of have to move to the side because when you push that to the side, you could have those honest conversations with yourself and be like, why did I say that? Why did I think that? That goes against my value system. But I'm overriding messages I've received from family, from religious groups, from the media, from all over, and I've got to unpack those. Not every message is for me to download, but I've downloaded some that I got to unpack, I got to rid myself of. Yeah, I think that's such great insight.

Brittany Boone

And the work can't just be done at work. When you're going to a diversity workshop at work, like, it has just continue outside of it. Like you said, you have to think about what your Uncle Pete used to say at dinnertime. Like, yeah, I work with Brittany, and she's black, but she's a cool black person. Those are the things you hear, and you have to do it outside of here. It can't just be a check the box.

Phil Wagner

Which is exactly what we're here to not do. So thank you for that. I want to talk about pushing people then because this is work, work. This is hard to do work. How do you know if you're pushing far enough? Like, how do we measure? Yeah, I've pushed them outside of their comfort zone. Yeah, I can measure growth and progress, maybe for ourselves, maybe for others, those you're consulting with. How do you measure if you pushed people far enough outside of their comfort zone?

Brittany Boone

I think maybe when you start getting the resistance, maybe that's a good barometer. And I'm hesitating. You notice my rate of speech has slowed a little bit because I'm trying to be thoughtful about this. And I think that pushing people in spite of the resistance, and I'm saying that slowly because there are some people are open to having the conversation, and some people are like, hey, well, yeah, let's explore. I think the resistance means you're going in the right direction. Like I said, I tell people that. So I think that's how you know you're doing it right, because it is going to when you're having to look at your patterns and look at how you've shown up and how you presented, and maybe looking at even where you are and thinking that maybe that had something to do with why I'm here. Hold on, let me backtrack a little bit because I don't like how that sounded. I'm not saying that people are in their positions because they're not talented and qualified and because they're white or men or whatever. I'm not saying that. But in some instances, there is privilege associated.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Parental input. Absolutely. Without a doubt.

Brittany Boone

Your socioeconomic status, all of those things. But when people have to look at that, that's going to be disconcerting for a lot of people. So I think once you start getting that resistance, it's like, okay, we're onto something. Let's keep going in this direction.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think that goes back to the guilt thing, right? Because we've, again, slow-baked guilt into our response mechanisms in the DEI space, and people don't know what to do with the fact that, oh, yeah, I had two parents who went to legacy universities and I got into the same ones, or, yeah, I grew up in an upper-middle-class household. And maybe those are just facts. And again, they're not character indictments. They're not moral indictments. They just exist. I think we need to just figure out how to grapple with those better, not necessarily come to those with the perspective of guilt. Does that makes sense? I don't know. I let all my guard down with you, my friend. Like, this is a friend of friend. I'm taking notes.

Brittany Boone

Let me ask you a question.

Phil Wagner

Oh, I like this.

Brittany Boone

My boss did a panel discussion yesterday, and so it was with some law firm in New York City, and I was listening to the panel discussion, and they said something that I had never heard before. So I want to see have you heard of this concept of sort of diversity fatigue.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely, but probably in different contexts.

Brittany Boone

I've never heard that. I guess the verbiage maybe. I don't know. Of course, I know this is something people get tired of.

Phil Wagner

So explain to our listeners your conception of diversity fatigue.

Brittany Boone

So diversity fatigue, people are just over it, especially, if you will, post-May 25, 2020, which is the day George Floyd was murdered, especially after that day. Companies are really looking at it, and companies are focused on it, and we're looking at numbers, and we're doing these workshops and having these discussions and all these things, and people are there's a sense that sometimes people are just over it. And I know that to be true, but I didn't know that it was big enough for there to be a title, like a name of it. And they taught me how to combat diversity fatigue. And I was like.

Phil Wagner

This is something we talk about, actually. So I teach a course on diversity, and we talk a little bit about this. And I think it's really hard to pinpoint one cause. But I think what happened sort of post-George Floyd is that we see a lot of companies, a lot of corporations sort of standing up and speaking out. You, as well as I, know those are very cheap efforts. Most of the time. They are one tagline. They are a 3% donation off of total profits. So they're very sort of inconsequential. But they are everywhere. There's the same reason why Amazon can slap Black Lives Matter on their main web page but then treat union workers in abysmal ways. Right? So this is do say one thing to another. And so I think part of it for me as a communication scholar, I'm always looking at I think there's just so many messages, but none with real meaning, none with real authenticity. And so because it's everywhere, but it means nothing in most cases. We haven't personalized it. We haven't brought the humanity back to it. And so I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so sick of doing another microaggression training. Why do I have to give up my lunch to do this? And it's because we haven't sort of explained the why behind it.

Brittany Boone

Yeah, I like that. And like I said, I just heard it yesterday, and so it's still just running through my mind. And my initial reaction, I'm thinking being a woman in a lot of my workshops, I use a lot of sports analogies. I'm not like the most athletic or sports-oriented person, but I just kind of think I can do that in a way that if a man does it, it might be looked at a little different. But I'm a woman, and they work. And I'm thinking, like, okay, diversity fatigue. Well, if you all would get it, and if you would do it, then we wouldn't have to keep talking about it. We would have to keep having these conversations if we're doing all these efforts, and then we look up in two years, and nothing has changed, and everything's the same. So if you would actually take it seriously and actually do it, then we wouldn't be talking about it anymore.

Phil Wagner

Everybody wants the benefits that come from a diverse and inclusive organization, but few want to put in the real work.

Brittany Boone

Yeah. And so I feel like if we go with the sports example, if I have trouble dribbling to my left, I can't just say, hey, I'm tired of learning that. I'm tired of you telling me to learn how to dribble. Can you all just not play me to my left side and just play me to my right? Because I'm tired of trying to learn that. I'm tired of trying to learn this backhand in tennis. Can you just hit it to me this way, so I don't have to? That sounds crazy. And I feel like it's the same thing. Like, we'll stop talking about it when you get it right. And it's not a nice to have this is a must-have. Like, we have to do this. And so I think that I have to think about that diversity fatigue some more because I'm not really buying that right now.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, yeah.

Brittany Boone

It just feels like another reason for people to say they don't want to talk about this stuff to me. And now we have a fancy word for it, like diversity fatigue. We can't talk about this anymore.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. No. And I think that's really it, and I think that's the real sentiment behind it is I don't think it's actual real fatigue. I think that it is an easy out. David Camps's work it talks about racial skepticism and how it's not really like, I'm not a racist. I just really wonder, could they pull themselves up by their bootstraps a little bit more? Could he have been nicer to that cop? Right. It's the same thing. I'm going to ask questions. I'm just critically thinking. Right. No, you're sort of masking that. And I think that's the same thing that happens here. Right. It's not an illness. You're going to be okay. You're not really fatigued. Take a nap and then get back in the race. Get back in that microaggression training. Whatever you need to do, keep doing the work.

Brittany Boone

Absolutely. Okay. I just wanted to see what you thought about that.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, it's interesting.

Brittany Boone

It was brand new for me yesterday. Brand new.

Phil Wagner

Okay, so let's talk about this. We talked about pushing people. Do you think that you can push too hard or maybe, like, push too fast? Because sometimes you have this outcome, and there are people who have these comfort zones that are really difficult to chisel away at. Again those family narratives run deep. Those religious ideologies run deep. Those social beliefs, those political beliefs, those run deep. So if you're trying to move the needle forward to actually get to outcomes, do you think you can push too hard, too fast?

Brittany Boone

So I have two answers for that. What I believe is, no, we need to talk about this. We need to be uncomfortable. We need to confront the issues. We need to use the real words. We don't need to water things down for the sake of making you comfortable, making them more palpable for you. We need to no. We need to just address all these things. That's what I believe, but what I know to be true from the work that I am doing is that my boss says, do you want to be right, or do you want to be effective?

Phil Wagner

Oh, that's good. That's good framing.

Brittany Boone

If you're wanting to be effective in this work, you have to meet people where they are. And everybody's not able to talk about systemic racism and how it operates on these levels and how it's baked into every single thing we do. Sometimes they got to start by talking about bias. Let's just talk about bias. Let's just walk you in. I think if we talk to someone who's never or if we go into an organization and do a workshop to a group that's never had any of this or had any conversations and we're not going to start off talking about anti-racism because it's just not going to be effective. People are going to. Is it right? Yeah. Because all of this stuff is still true. It still applies, but it won't be effective. So I think that if you want to be effective, it is important to meet people where they are. Yes, these conversations will be uncomfortable to some extent, but I don't think you can overwhelm people with the discomfort if you're wanting to be effective.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Again. I go back to David Camp's work. I think very highly of him and what he does. And so he says that meeting people where they are is not a values concession. Right. It doesn't mean that I forgo what I really believe or my real values here. Rather, I get sort of intellectually curious, and I ask questions that invite the other person to share not their beliefs but what led them to their beliefs so that then I can start to build community, build connection. And I'm not sacrificing anything. I'm not putting my antiracist values aside, but I recognize maybe we don't start there. Maybe we back up and talk about where did you even get the idea that being color-blind is a good thing. Or that we can all just pull ourselves up. Where did you get those ideas from? And then, can we build community around any sense of shared values to then move the needle forward? And so I think maybe another question here is how do you decide, okay, here's where I'm going to draw the line I'm not going to concede. I'm not going to drop my values. I mean, that's a really difficult thing to do because we want to be right, or I think we build our idea of effectiveness on, yeah, I was right in that situation. Yeah, I dropped the mic. Yeah, I did what I needed to do. I checked my box, my performance box. How do you decide where the line is? I'm asking you the worst, the toughest questions. Dr. Boone, I'm so sorry.

Brittany Boone

These are a little they're a little tough, and I think so I think that my answer would be different if I'm talking to an individual versus if I'm going into an organization. Because if you're going into an organization, I think they will both be equally as, maybe difficult or easier, whichever way you think they are. But it would just be a different approach. If you're going into an organization, you have to figure out what kind of conversations they're having, what is the culture like, what is leadership believe. Because that's where that is, where the book starts and stops is leadership. And so a lot of times, people want to do this diversity stuff, and they want to diversity stuff. You all can't see my air quotes diversity stuff, but people come in, and they want to start at the middle. So the leadership, we're too busy to talk about that, and we won't have time. So can you all, can you all do that? And so then the middle is supposed to start it, but nobody cares if it's coming from the middle. It has to come from the top. And so it's figuring out, is there a leadership buying in? What is the culture like? What are the demographics of the organization? Because then maybe I can start a little bit further. If they've had these conversations before, if they're starting from scratch and it's a company that has two people of color and 92% of the people are white men, straight, heterosexual white men, that's going to be a different starting place. If I'm talking to an individual, you can sort of ask questions, and then it's important to then try to validate. And, like you said, validating. And validating doesn't mean that you agree. I don't have to agree with what you're saying, but I can see you. I can signal to you that I see, and I see why you might feel that way. I see why you might feel like giving these people jobs means fewer jobs for you. I can see that. But let me explain to you why it's not a zero-sum game. So I think it's sort of knowing your audience. I guess I said the long-winded version of it.

Phil Wagner

No, it's so good. And again, that fits very much within how I see this work, too, right? When you say, well, if people of color would just work harder, their economic situation would improve, okay, I cannot get there. But where I can get is this sort of shared idea we might have that within the overall economic equation, there is some individual effort that does factor in. I was going to look differently among different groups who have different level of access, but there's a nugget of truth in there that we can sort of maybe both agree on, even if different ways. That allows us to then move the needle forward. And another person whose work I'm a big fan of is Donna Hicks and her work on dignity. And I think if you really want to move the needle forward, you have to afford dignity to the other person you're in conversation with. Otherwise, you're kind of guilty of the same things that you preach against, right? You're looking down your nose at people, and that's not really the goal here. Again, I go back to this is about building community and moving people forward, and that might look different for each individual person. So it's not a values concession, but it's individualized, and that's what makes this diversity work with air quotes really difficult.

Brittany Boone

And I think you just said something that resonated with me, and I think it's something else that's important is bringing in white men, like bringing them into the conversation. I do a lot of when we're prepping to go into a client, sometimes we do interviews, and we'll talk to just a handful of people from the organization just to see culture, what things are working well, areas of opportunity, all that stuff. And so sometimes you'll be talking to a white man, and maybe it's a white man who's on a D&I committee and those types of things, and he's like, well, I just always feel like there's sort of this feeling like they can't be the ones that talk, and they can't be the people that they can't be the voice. And I don't know about this, so I would defer to someone else. And while the sentiment behind that is good because that's part of allyship, you don't want to come in like the night in shining armor and feel like saviors. However, there is something to working with white men who feel like this work is important and who talk about it and don't let all the people of color and all the women in your workplace carry this by themselves because in order for it to move you all have to think it's important too. And so just bringing in white men, sometimes white men feel like I'm not diverse. This isn't for me. But it is. It's for all of us because everyone is diverse. We're all these things. And I think it's important to that is an important piece is making sure that people know it is for everyone. It impacts all of us.

Phil Wagner

And this goes back to the comfort zone. All on my vulnerabilities, here I am if you can't tell super white guy in the DEI space. I have had DEI leadership positions. Paid leadership positions. And I have had to do that self-work too. It's something I haven't ever found the answer on of how much space should I be occupying and how much space should I not be occupying. And I carry a lot of sort of comfort zone tensions there too. I believe in this work. I will do this work constantly. But when it comes to then having space with really impact, I struggle. There's a lot here. I don't want to just throw it to all the women of color or people of color or LGBTQ folks just because that makes sense, and that's what often gets done. So I think this is just about being reflective and saying, no, I'm working through the tensions, and maybe that's okay. Right.

Brittany Boone

And just talk, verbalizing it like you just did. Like saying, hey, this feels weird for me as a white guy to do this. What makes you comfortable with this? Because I want your voice to be heard. But also, we have my team that I work with at ValloKarp. We have three black women. We have one Latino male, and then we have one white guy. I said white guy, like I said, guy different in it. So we talk about sometimes the messenger versus the message. And sometimes, when we go into certain settings, if we're in a law firm like the super conservative, there are certain things that will sound better coming from the white man. It will not sound better be more effective.

Phil Wagner

Because it's not seen as, like, self-preservation.

Brittany Boone

Exactly.

Phil Wagner

Right. Oh, you're just saying that because you're black, and this benefits you. Yeah. No, it makes total sense.

Brittany Boone

And that's how you can use your identity, and that's helpful. So sometimes, it might have to be your voice.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. I think it's just looking at the realities of where the DEI equation is. We're talking about pushing people out of their comfort zones and towards the DEI industry and what the DEI industry does. But you and I have done this work and talked about this work for a while. We publish on this work. We've been in this work. And I think we're coming to this from the other side, where we may now be looking back at the DEI industrial complex with a little bit of skepticism because that has sort of become something that I don't think it was ever really meant to be. Right. I mean, you know, like the history, like, post title seven, when organizations got more diverse, and they were like, oh, shoot, now we need to make sure we tend to this diverse workforce. And then from there, things kind of moved out of HR and into the hands of DEI consultants, and you are one. This is not delegitimizing that you do such important work, but, you know, because you are one. For every good one, there are ten bad ones who are not qualified or who may be moving the needle the other way. And so this DEI industry has gotten. Yeah, exactly. So how do we push the DEI industry out of its comfort zone to keep it accountable, to make sure that we're pushing in the right places, we're consistent in our message? We're not just settling for a check-the-box template from this other side. How do we push this industry, this industrial complex, to do this work and to do it well?

Brittany Boone

That's something I struggle with because not literally, like, day to day, I struggle with it, but in thinking about it, I struggle with it because you're sort of fighting against dollars. And how do you measure against dollars? You know what I mean? Especially, like you said after Title Seven, but even like we said after George Floyd, all these people popping up. And then the firm that I work for has been around for 20 years. And so there are even some people when we're asking, we're potentially talking to new clients or potential clients, rather, they ask us about our pricing, and they're like, so is this sort of this idea that maybe we've hiked our prices up since George Floyd got murdered? Because there are people doing that.

Phil Wagner

No kidding.

Brittany Boone

I just think that my appeal to people in the D&I space would be this work is too important for you to not take it seriously. It's too important. It's so important. Like, people's livelihoods. It's too important. And so I don't know, other than that, how to go against the money that people are making because that's what has happened. People saw a niche for it, and they're like, oh, I'm a person of color, and I can go in here and do this, and I can just do this, check the box and get this done.

Phil Wagner

I mean, it's also white people. You look at the number of white consultants in this space, which, again, everybody has a unique access point. And I'm not here to call out people and say you're a real one. You're not. That's not what I'm saying at all. But there's a lot of junk out there, right? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that is just settling for status quo and nothing more. And I love that appeal, again, bringing it back to a central, bringing it back to humanity, bringing it back to dignity. There is too much at stake here to settle for just a check-the-box format.

Brittany Boone

And when I first started doing this work, I found I would get really nervous. Before, like, if I had a group that was all white people, I'm like, I'm going here and talk about, this is nothing. But when I would have a group that had, like, a large number of people of color, I got more nervous. And I had to really like, why am I so nervous? And it's because these are the people that this impacts, and I need to get this right. And I don't want them. I'm in this room, and I have a voice. I have a level of power in this room that they don't have because I remember being in that workspace and coming in and looking at the art on the walls, and it's all white men, and I remember that, and I remember trying to bring it up and getting in trouble and getting told that. I remember that. And so, since I have a voice in this room, I need to make sure that I talk about this in a way that these people in this room will be satisfied. I don't want them walking out of here being like, See, she missed it. I don't want that. And I think that maybe that would be how I answer that question. What would the most oppressed person in this room say about what you just said? Would they agree? Would they feel that it was helpful? Did you help them? And maybe that's the measure.

Phil Wagner

And if everybody in every capacity would just take on that orientation, the ones who are impacted the most by this, what will they walk out thinking, feeling, doing, believing about themselves or their roles in this organization? If you would just take that orientation, that's a good communication orientation. That's not even DEI work. That's just being a good communicator and thinking about your audience. And so I think it's so simple, but obviously so difficult to actually put into practice. I got one final question for you. All right, so we're talking about comfort zones, and I want to know, as a DEI consultant who has done this work, written on this work, is in it every single day, what do you do to push yourself outside of your comfort zone? And can you offer suggestions to our listeners for how they can intentionally step out of theirs?

Brittany Boone

So my comfort zone, it's a little different because I grew up like, my mom would always talk to me about racial equity and racism and how it showed up. So race was my in to this work. And then being a black woman whose experience of growing up in the Midwest, like, you know that. And so the things I've heard, the things I've seen as a kid, I always want to confront it head-on. So for me, the challenge, the area for growth for me, has been what we just talked about a moment ago with regard to finding the commonality and not going in like a bulldozer and trying to steamroll over everything. And it's being able to hear people so that I can be more effective. Because I think that there are, like we were saying earlier, there are different styles of consulting that you have out there. You have some people that go in, and they're really like, check the box. Like, we're just going to do this. But then you have some people that go in, and they're like balls to the wall if you will, and they're like, hey, no, that is racist, and that doesn't necessarily resonate with every group well. And so being able to dial it back and being able to be fluid in my approach, even if I really disagree with something that somebody said, and I really feel strongly about that, really learning to be more effective by being fluid in my approach has been my biggest learning point. And I'm still a work in progress on that.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, you and me both. But that's intellectual maturity, right? I mean, I think a lot of the critiques of DEI work are really sort of self-appointed white allies who have done just that. I'm going to check my own box. Look at how, like, yeah, I can shut you down and walk away and wash your hands, and nothing happens to the systemic oppression that you're, quote, unquote, trying to address. Right. You have not made life better for anybody except yourself because you feel good right now. That doesn't actually lead. You patted yourself on the back, and you moved right along, and you don't have to think about this anymore, and you might have made the situation worse because that person you are, quote, unquote, trying to change, is now more emboldened. See, I can't satisfy anybody, but you know what I mean? So there's an intellectual maturity that I think this requires, and I think that really goes back to where we started today, which is on comfort zones to get out of them, it requires, I think, higher order skills.

Brittany Boone

That's what I would suggest to people. It's just being able to be don't just have one approach. Develop multiple approaches so that you can be effective with any group that you're confronted with. Confronted is a very confrontational word. Any group that you are presented with be effective with them. Be willing to adapt, and don't require everyone to come to you. And that's something we tell. We're doing inclusive leadership seminars and everything, so practicing what I preach, even in this work, is important.

Phil Wagner

And it's harder than what people might think, isn't it, to practice what.

Brittany Boone

Man.

Phil Wagner

I know it.

Brittany Boone

It is.

Phil Wagner

Dr. Brittany Boone. Gosh, to say it's a privilege is just a monumental understatement. I have been looking forward to this conversation forever. I am so excited. I love watching what you're doing. You're doing such important work. Thanks for sharing some of that work with us today. A true privilege, my friend.

Brittany Boone

Thank you, Dr. Phil. So people want to know when you're having me back, so just make sure.

Phil Wagner

People, yeah, I see that. Right. They've already written as this. You're coming back for sure. For sure. What a great conversation. Thank you.

Brittany Boone

Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• How Sarah found a career path towards DEI work
• What Sarah means by "DEI is an impossible job"
• Why some corporate DEI initiatives fail
• The importance of executive-level buy-in when implementing a DEI program
• How much budgetary constraints impact DEI work
• What are the hidden costs of a DEI strategy
• Why companies should pursue DEI work even in an economic downturn
• How to make sure DEI work is impactful
• How to take a western-centric DEI mindset and translate it globally

Transcript

Sarah Cordivano

That is power. Having control over how money is spent is where power lies. And I think, for me, that's one of the motivators because we can do a lot of grassroots, individual-level work. But if we're not actually changing how money is spent, then there's a limit to what we can do, right?

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work, the podcast where we center real human lived experiences that shape and define our DEI leadership. I'm joined today by Sarah Cordivano, who works as the head of D&I Strategy and Governance at Zalando. She brings along expertise in data analytics to help implement impactful data-driven DEI work. She's also a professional speaker and a writer, and particularly happy to announce her recently published book, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion How to Succeed at an Impossible Job, which is definitely going to be the feel and the flavor of today's conversation, something we've talked about a lot already on many of our episodes. Sarah is from Philly. She's currently living in Berlin. She's got a great story and some great insights for us today. Sarah, welcome to our podcast. It is an honor to have you here. Thanks for joining us.

Sarah Cordivano

Thanks, Phil. I'm so glad to be here.

Phil Wagner

So let's just kick things off and start with maybe a little bit of your story. Can you tell our listeners how you found your way into DEI work and then to Berlin?

Sarah Cordivano

Sure. So I have a pretty nonlinear career path, so I actually originally studied geography and urban studies, and my first career was in tech and data and mapping spatial data. So I was working with geographic data and maps, and that actually gave me a very interesting taste on how access to resources and opportunities are not equally distributed around the world. And my first taste of what equity is. And eventually, years later in my career, I decided to move to Berlin to just try something new. And that gave me the opportunity to get involved with employee resource groups at the company where I worked. And eventually, that transitioned into working in DEI full-time. And that's a very short story of a much longer a longer story. But I will mention one thing, which is the data side, which has been a huge asset to me as I've developed my career and figured out how to do successful DEI work.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's fantastic. Do you think it's the data that opened up the door? Do you think it's passions and, sort of like, proficiency in this language that opened up the door? Was it a coupling? I mean, that's a really nice pathway, and I see how that makes sense, but it's something I think you probably had to push on a few doors to make that happen, right?

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah, I think it was a combination of the community work, so getting involved with ERGs and getting really interested in how community work together can change businesses and then also having a strong core of data analytics skills and project management helped me be really effective in the work that I was doing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's so good. So let's talk about the book. I'm really, really excited about this book, particularly just because of the title, because we know that this is important work to do. But we've talked about it time and time again on the show. This is difficult work to do. I mean, even if you have maybe the identity push to do this work, this is something that impacts your community. You have the passion to do this work because you see social injustice all around you. It really doesn't matter your access point. At some time or another, you're going to get frustrated. You're probably going to get burned out. There's good data to support this. So you own that. Your book is called how to Succeed at an Impossible Job. So what do you even mean? Like, from your context, from your lens, what do you mean by DEI being an impossible job?

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah, so thanks for asking me that because I know that the title is a bit provoking, but I wanted it to be that way. And what I mean is, it's not. I don't mean that it's impossible to do really fantastic impactful DEI work. Actually, quite the opposite. I mean that it's often impossible to achieve all the things that we want in our DEI work. And why is that? The expectations we have for the role typically don't always live up to the reality of what we can actually accomplish, especially considering what resources and commitment we have available from the organization we work in. And oftentimes, when organizations hire their first DEI role, they have all these expectations about what that role is going to do, but they haven't given them any resources, any budget. They haven't positioned that role within the organization to actually have influence, and all of that and the expectations we have on ourselves, the expectations other people have for us, really makes it impossible to fulfill all those expectations. But what I try to do in the book is talk about if we really understand the situation that we're in, understand the limitations, understand what levers we can pull, then we can actually reset those expectations and actually do really fantastic work.

Phil Wagner

What I love when you open up the first chapter and you talk about this being an impossible position, one of the things you mentioned that I think we don't talk about enough is the emotional labor too. That's part of what makes this impossible, you argue, is that all of those the misalignment of expectation that adds up over time to create this sort of emotional burden. And I think that emotional labor disproportionately impacts often folks of color, women, LGBTQ folks, and other historically underrepresented or minoritized communities. And I think that's a really important conversation to have because it riffs on themes you set later in the book on mental health and wellness too.

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah, absolutely. I think you summed it up quite well. So I don't know if I have anything to add to it. But I think, in general, a lot of people get into this job, and they have this utopian vision of what it will be like. And they feel like they'll finally be able to do that grassroots work that they want to, that they are driven to do. But in reality, it's often much more boring than that. It's change management, influence, communication. We feel like sometimes that we're shortchanging our communities, and that can be a really difficult realization to have.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's so good. Making those, I don't know if they're concessions. Right? But I think that also presents just really interesting issues for DEI practitioners to grapple with. Do I have to concede some of, maybe, my social justice-anchored desired outcomes to achieve real change in my organization? And that can lead to some really tough, I think, self-dialogue. Let's move on beyond that because we're going to come back to some of those themes towards the end of today. I want to talk you talk quite significantly about why DEI programs and DEI work fails oftentimes in organizations. Can we own some of those failures here today? Maybe put out on the table some of the things that we should be watching out for in our own organizations to make sure our DEI work doesn't fail.

Sarah Cordivano

Absolutely. And let me speak on behalf of my own experience of working in DEI in Europe, which is, you know, different from the States and other areas.

Phil Wagner

Quite different.

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah. So in the past two years, you know, we've seen a lot of companies hire their first DEI role. And I think that there's probably a lot of internal debate and discussion and pain that went into that ultimate decision to hire that first role. And I think companies often see hiring the DEI role as the solution, as the fix to the problem that they had. And I'm oversimplifying, but I'm also speaking from experience of speaking to organizations, and in reality, we know that it's not actually the solution. It's the very, very early start of a much longer solution that requires a lot of commitment. So with that is sort of the backdrop, let's talk about why DEI work fails. I think one of the biggest things I'd mention is the lack of executive-level buy-in and endorsement. So you've got a DEI role, maybe you've got a whole team, but they're buried somewhere in human resources. They are reporting to someone who doesn't really have familiarity with DEI. There's five levels of hierarchy between that team and the executive-level leadership. And when those teams are siloed within HR, it's really easy for everyone around them to perceive this as, oh, that's just the HR topic, just like a different HR topic, just like talent acquisition, it just belongs in HR. And it's really difficult for this to be perceived as a strategic business topic. So I think that can be one of the biggest ways to fail because everyone around you does not perceive this as a critical business topic. And then, when your organization is making business decisions, they don't bring DEI into it. And there's so many cautionary tales around situations where the DEI team is doing really fantastic work, but business decisions or some other external force undermines that work.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Cordivano

And then I'll keep it short because there's so many ways to fail, and I'll encourage you to check out the book to find out more reasons. But another thing I'll mention is working without a strategic focus. So we know that there's so many DEI topics to focus on. And as a DEI professional, you get requests and urgent emails all the time. And if you don't have that strategy, that's always your North Star. It's really difficult to stay focused because you constantly are reacting, and it can be really difficult to actually achieve anything because you're not actually putting all your energy into one direction. And then lastly, I'll mention, and I bring up, the data theme, as you mentioned in the beginning, but when we're not using data to understand the baseline where we're starting from as an organization, we don't know where we're going. And we need that data to understand whether the initiatives that we're doing, we're investing our time and energy in, are actually having the impact that we want. And this is huge. I mean, I think so many DEI strategies are based on assumptions or anecdotes or low-hanging fruit, let's say. And I think it's really important to actually figure out whether the work that we're doing is having an impact. I mean, this is what we're trying to achieve, right? And at the same time, when you are able to say whether your work is having an impact, you're able to recognize progress, and that keeps you motivated. So those two things sort of fit into each other.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, they do. In your work, you talk about also stepping back to assess. Do I even have the power to drive change in this area? And I think that that's a really important thing to step back and ask too. That has to do with those organizational hierarchical structures. But I also think that it also lends itself well to a self-analysis of how do people see me as a DEI leader, a practitioner within the organizations. You have this really brief paragraph, but I love it because you could probably write a whole work on misconceptions that people have of DEI officers or DEI teams, right? That they're going to come in and be the language police, or they're a grievance conduit, or they're trying to gather all of the anecdotes, as you say, and be a personal champion. But those misconceptions can often get in the way of the very impactful work that you're speaking to here.

Sarah Cordivano

I completely agree. I would say that's very true. And I think one of the most powerful things someone in a DEI role can do is be an influence to decision-makers. That can be awkward because sometimes those people are several levels above you. But at the same time, we can't change an organization from the grassroots level only. We really need that influence from the top down. And yeah, that's what it takes.

Phil Wagner

So from the top down comes a lot, comes support. And one of the primary mechanisms of support I think you need in DEI but don't often see, I would argue, is budget, budgetary authority, the ability to spend dollars because this work is not free work. It costs money to do this work well. Right. So I'm wondering, can you speak to some of the budgetary issues? I think this is, again, a theme that we have ripped on a few times in many of our episodes, that there's these lofty expectations, those utopian goals, as you talked about earlier, but then they're like, top-down leadership might be all right, go get it done, good luck. And there's no budgetary commitment. So I'm wondering if you can speak to budget here.

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah, for sure. It's really interesting because I get this question a lot. How much should our DEI budget be? Like, how much should our organization spend? And I actually challenge this question a lot because I say in many ways budget is the cheapest thing, the most inexpensive thing you will put behind your DEI work. There's a lot more expensive costs that are hidden in a successful DEI strategy.

Phil Wagner

Like what?

Sarah Cordivano

Great question. So I think that the number one, most important one is executive sponsorship. And let me tell you why this has a cost. So the time of an executive is finite, right? They are very high paid individuals with huge demands on their time. So if they're spending time championing your DEI work, they're not doing something else. And if they're spending time educating themselves and being available at short notice on DEI topics, then that takes their focus from something else. But at the same time, that is a very necessary thing that we need, and it does have an actual cost. On the other hand, or in addition, I would say ranking DEI as a strategic priority also has a cost because it means we're deprioritizing something else. And that could be if we have a big expansion for a company in the next year, it could mean, okay, we're going to delay that by six months because we want to make sure we're doing it in the right way. It could mean we're going to invest in a bigger team because we want to make sure that the strategic decision that we make also has DEI considered in it. And then lastly, it's all the costs of actually implementing the work. So that means the willingness to change processes. So people often have this misconception that a DEI team, it's self-contained, it does the work, it sets the initiatives, it implements them, and that's it. But there are so many processes that are impacted by DEI work. And if you want to really transform an organization, you also need to change those processes. And that could be everything from talent acquisition, promotions, compensation, and benefits. So you need the organization to be willing to actually go in and change those processes. And that's expensive. That's very expensive. It can mean that you need people embedded within those teams that are doing DEI support. And I've seen DEI teams with only three, four, five people that are really effective. And the reason that they're effective is because they have people across the organization embedded within those teams that spend their time doing DEI work within their area. And that, I think, might be the most critical thing you need and also very expensive thing you need for success.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, it's so impactful. And I don't want to have you sort of repeat your book to us. This is a good call for our listeners to go buy the book, and we'll give you a link to do that, certainly in the show notes as well. But there's so much in there. I mean, you even give advice in one of your chapters on how to frame conversations with senior executives around ROI and how D&I factors in. I love one of the tips you give, which is just think about what the Glassdoor reviews say, like, what do you want them to say about our organization? And I think the public can often get in front of well-intended organizational deliverables. And so I think that's a great question to ask. And again, Sarah, you give good budget. You give real numbers in your book too. Like, here's what data says are best practices in certain levels of companies and corporations and organizations. Here's how that budget might be distributed. So if you're out there struggling for some budgetary insight, definitely grab a copy of Sarah's book because it is very helpful in starting the conversation. But let's go beyond budget, and let's go back to this being an impossible job. You've highlighted today so many areas of complexity, from budget, from buy-in, from misperceptions. There's a lot. So amidst this sea of impossibility, knowing that DEI work often fails and it costs a lot, and that cost is not just money, why the heck do it? I mean, can you offer us a perspective on what imperatives we call upon to keep us centered in this work? Because it's difficult work. So what's the why here? What do you always go back to keep you on track?

Sarah Cordivano

Well, first to talk about the perspective of the companies of an organization. Why would they do this work? Because often I get that question too. Especially we're looking ahead to the next six months. We're looking at an economic downturn. Why are companies doing this? What is the case for them to continue to work on DEI? So the first thing I would say is they have to do it because their employees demand it. Investors and regulators are requiring it more and more so with actual tangible regulations, and the customers are looking for it. And all of these groups are getting much better at figuring out what is nonsense and what is real. So in the last few years, we've seen companies really have to take this topic more seriously because they have no choice. And then, for the perspective of myself and my colleagues are doing this work in DEI, I think everyone has different motivations. A lot of people have very strong personal feelings around why they want to do DEI work, what change they want to see. I'm also motivated because I would like to have a direct impact on the experiences of my coworkers. I want them to feel the impact of my work. I don't care so much whether the executive team feels the impact of my work, to be honest. I care whether the employees in my company feel the impact of my work. That's what counts to me. And at the same time, I really appreciate one of my motivators is the ability to have influence over decisions and how money is spent and how a business is expanded, or how we focus our campaigns, or how we make our website accessible. That is power. Having control over how money is spent is where power lies. And I think, for me, that's one of the motivators because we can do a lot of grassroots, individual-level work. But if we're not actually changing how money is spent, then there's a limit to what we can do. Right.

Phil Wagner

So what have you found to be the most impactful DEI deliverables? To walk out that why. The things that do the very thing you just mentioned, right? Like, create change and difference in the lives of those I bump elbows with laterally in the organization. Do you have any insight on things that might work particularly well that are really worth the investment in the effort?

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah, so the first, I would say, is doing a DEI survey and actually collecting the data. Because until you do that, you don't know where your issues are. But once you do that, you can really understand the intersection of identity and inclusion, and belonging. And that becomes very powerful because instead of saying, on average, the entire company feels X, you can say, well, these specific communities are marginalized. These specific communities lack opportunity and leadership, and then you can really focus your efforts there. And then I would say another way to have really big impact is to make sure DEI is reflected in your business's strategic goals in the future. So that could be through an operational plan or OKRs or whatever objective setting that you do. And if DEI is really a required element in that and everyone takes it seriously, maybe it is even reinforced through bonuses or some other mechanism where there is accountability, then you actually see people doing this work, and it's difficult for business leaders to really own it until there's some incentive that really forces them to do it.

Phil Wagner

So I want to switch ever so slightly and talk to my Berlin friend for a second because I teach courses on DEI leadership, and I've talked about this openly. I think as DEI practitioners, we've got to admit our strengths and our weaknesses. And one of my weaknesses is in such a limited span of a term or a semester. There's so much content to cover as you prepare students to go out and lead in impactful ways in DEI space because you have to cover everything from very basic terminology. You have to grapple with competing political ideologies and all of the identity affinity spaces, disability, sexuality, race, and race. There's so much to cover, and admittedly I make concessions because we send most of our students into the world of work to globally-minded companies that are often anchored here in the west and particularly in the States. I'm wondering if you have any insight on DEI in the global context. Right? Like how do we take our lens, our landscape, and expand it beyond just one geographic area? Because as you mentioned, doing DEI work in the States and doing it in Berlin is going to look very different. Ideas about race, for instance, are going to differ quite significantly there. So how might even western anchored organizations take on a global mentality in their DEI work?

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah, the first thing I would say is looking at your strategy and making sure it's not just prioritizing or focusing on one geographic area or the needs of one geographic area. So when you work in an organization that has a global footprint, it's very possible that you're getting more complaints or you're getting more interest on DEI from some geographic areas compared to others. But that doesn't mean that those areas are somehow more important to you. And I think it really takes a global strategy that doesn't prioritize on just one geographic area or one location to make sure that you are thinking beyond just one specific area. And what does that practically look like? So it could be having a globally relevant strategy but then having local ownership and the ability to adapt initiatives or focuses locally. So you could do that with an advocate program where you have people based in different geographic areas or different parts of the business that are empowered to take the ambition or the goals of the strategy and adapt them for whatever is locally relevant. And I'll give you a specific example. So one of my previous companies, we did a DEI survey in 50 countries, and we went through a lot of effort to make sure that that survey was globally relevant. But we also did a lot of work around translations. So we used locally relevant language to make sure that when we're asking a question about race, for example, we are not just forcing my own western and American views around the world. And that becomes very challenging because a lot of DEI folks, they are very passionate about this topic, and they think they know the answers to everything. But there is a humility in saying, you know what, we don't know. We have to get advice from people in other parts of the world, and sometimes we have to step back, and we have to center their voices and not our own.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and you talk about this at length. I mean, I love in the section where you share on some of your own lessons learned. I think it's mistake number one is just thinking too narrowly about diversity, and you talk about it in the sense of identity. But I also think that applies to sort of Western versus globally anchored perspectives, too, to expand that's part of the work, the self-development work for DEI practitioners. I have a few more questions, and Sarah, I could talk to you all day because I think maybe I'm your target audience here. I read this book, and I'm like, yes, somebody put words around these frustrations or what we need to bring about greater coherency and clarity. I gleaned so much. You've spoken to the economic downturn that seems to be impending. Are there other things on your radar or things you see in the future that might continue to make this even more complicated work? The area of DEI leadership. Things ahead that we might be mindful of?

Sarah Cordivano

That's a great question. I think that we don't even know yet what the impact of the economic downturn will have on our work. I know anecdotally from friends that DEI roles are already being cut, budgets are getting cut, and DEI work is being deprioritized. But I think there's also probably a broader discussion, less about the economy and more about global migration. And I think we saw this with the current war in Ukraine around, how can we as businesses support people to migrate and find either support remote work or find opportunities in different countries? And I think this is a hugely it's in a way, a bit of an immature topic because it's going to require a lot more effort and also policy change in terms of how immigrants, myself included but many others, are able to move around the world and access opportunity because one of the biggest issues we saw during COVID is that all of a sudden, it became possible to work outside of the headquarter location of a company, and all of a sudden, that brings economic development, economic resources to small towns in the US for example. Or it could be other countries in the global south. So I don't have a perfect prediction on this yet, but I'm actually really curious to see how this develops. And I think you just need a few big companies to make a global remote working policy, to communicate a global remote working policy, and then a lot of other companies will follow.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So one more question for you.

Sarah Cordivano

Sure.

Phil Wagner

This is difficult work. I mean, your book owns that. We've talked about it quite extensively today. There are folks who find themselves every day in precarious positions. Maybe they are CDOs. Maybe they are leading ERGs. They're NHR and tasked to do this work as a sole entity, which, again, your book also talked about why that's bad practice. So what advice can you offer someone who is in a DEI position to create sort of healthy relationship with that work itself, maintain that work-life balance, ensure that they are not being emotionally or physically, or organizationally exploited? What advice can you give to DEI practitioners to keep doing the work but do it in a healthy way?

Sarah Cordivano

Yeah. So, first, I'll say that the advice I'm going to share with you is not just relevant to DEI folks. There is a lot of people who do very emotionally intense work. For example, people working in ethics, human rights, sustainability. And I think this advice might be relevant to them as well. Because all of those jobs, something that we're really passionate about, we want to do a good job, we empathize with our stakeholders, the people that we're trying to impact, and we also want to meet their expectations. We're coming from a place where I want to do a good job, and I want people to think and feel that I'm doing a good job. But all of that boils down to a very difficult situation. So the first thing I would say, let me give maybe four key pieces of advice. The first would be having very clear expectations with ourselves and the people we work with. So being very transparent about what our role is, what is out of scope of our role, what we can do, what we can't do, and then building on that, developing a really good sense of what is within and outside of our sphere of control. This is a tough one because it can be a bit of a personal, painful journey to figure out. I don't have influence over that. But the reality is our stakeholders assume that we have influence over everything. They see a DEI person, they say, oh, of course, you have control over compensation. Of course, you have control over whether the doors of this building are accessible. Of course, you have control over our talent processes or our promotion processes. But in reality, there's typically a lot of topics in an organization that the leadership did not perceive as a DEI topic. But our stakeholders don't know that. So we have to be very authentic and open. And sometimes, it hurts our ego a little bit to say, I don't have any control over that, but if we don't set that expectation, then we're just going to be constantly disappointing them. And I think, again, this is how we deal with that difficulty that building that healthy relationship with the work. And then the next thing is probably really around remembering that even if we're passionate about the work we do, it's still a job.

Phil Wagner

That's good.

Sarah Cordivano

It's a financial transaction. Someone's giving me money for my time and expertise, and I'm going to do my best. But also, I don't want to work for free. And there's a privilege in being paid for this work. There's a lot of people that do this work without being paid. So it's important that we take care of ourselves and that we are not burnt out and that we, yeah, essentially. Lastly, I would say we use that time outside of work to really recharge. We take our vacation days. We're sick. We take sick days. We surround ourselves with people that can support us that we trust, and we really use that time to recharge.

Phil Wagner

I love all of those, and I really like the note on payment and transaction. And if you are in a privileged space where maybe you're not in need of that financial transaction, be wary of the precedent you're setting for other DEI practitioners. No, I'll do it for the team. What precedent are you setting for the value of DEI work? And when that then is in the hands of someone who isn't more of an economic precarious situation or is again one of those historically underrepresented or minoritized populations, you've then contributed to the expectation that their work, their voice, their value, their outputs are not worthy of payment. So I think it's something to be hyper-mindful of too. Just the transactional nature of it all. That's really helpful insight. All right, final question, but this is an easy one. How can our listeners support you? This book is fire. So I will set the stage and say, go buy the book. What it does is it takes everything you wanted to know about how to build a coherent DEI platform, DEI position, DEI leadership voice, and it just brings it all to the table. So I will put my personal endorsement on this. This is everything I wanted to see in one volume and now do. So it's a fantastic book. Where can our listeners buy, support? How can they support you?

Sarah Cordivano

Wow, I have to say you are so kind. You are too generous. But thank you for saying all that. Wow. The listeners won't know this, but my book just launched yesterday, so it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster to actually have the courage and confidence to release this into the world. So it means a lot that it has meant something to you. So thank you for that. But yes, you can buy this book on Amazon. It is available in ebook, paperback, hardcover. You can also find it on other Amazon sites, not just Amazon.com, so all across the world. And if you are in a situation where you cannot afford to buy this book, please get in contact with me, and I am super happy to give you a copy in it, just contact me. There's a form on my website, which is my name, sarahcordovano.com. And please just reach out to me, I'll get you the book. And I also have a blog, so if you want to read more about what I write and what I think, check out my blog, which you can also find on my website. And I think that's it. That's probably the key points.

Phil Wagner

No, that's good. And if you're in a position where you can afford to buy this book and can afford to buy a copy for a friend, do it. Do it, do it. Give it to a student. Give it to an MBA student, undergraduate student, somebody who is DEI minded, even if they're not sort of aiming for a DEI-centric position, because it's a really strong manual. So, again, we're recording this on August 4. It dropped on August 3. But as you know, if you're listening to this, it is not those dates. It's been out into the world for a while, so there's no excuse. Go pick up a copy today. Sarah, it's a real privilege to speak with you. Thank you for chatting with us a little bit more about the impossible nature of DEI work and how we can have hope to do that work well to create a different reality for the future. So it's been a real joy speaking with you today.

Sarah Cordivano

Thank you. You too.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What does Black Dignity truly mean
• How a lack of dignity manifests in fashion and style
• What the difference is between dignity and respect
• What the pandemic revealed about code-switching
• How to equip non-POC workers to identify and address dignity violations
• What tools should marginalized communities develop to advocate for their own dignity
• How best to embed dignity into DEI work in the world of work

Transcript

Erika Cartledge

At a corporation, if I don't feel good, how can I go out and sell your product? How can I go out and represent a company? It is too important to the work that you're doing, wherever you are, to just be base level and surface level. And does it mean people are going to have to go? Yeah, probably.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. I'm joined today by my friend Erika Cartledge, who I am so excited to host here. Erika Cartledge is just a force. If you've ever met her, even for just a moment, you'll feel it. She's got an energy that just commands the room. She's busy. She bleeds blue as a proud Howard alum go bison. Erika started her personal styling company. Your Chic is Showing to help folks elevate their personal style and build their confidence. She's rocked this space as a personal shopper, wardrobe overhauler, closet detoxer, styler, educator. She's got ebooks, a thriving Instagram community. And let me be clear, that's like a quarter of what Erika does. She's also served in a variety of marketing roles and is currently the major gifts director for the Key School in Annapolis, Maryland. She's a devoted partner, mom, and, honestly, just one of the coolest people you'll ever meet. So, Erika, it's a delight to have you here. I'm sure that I have botched your background in some way. Can you tell our listeners maybe a little bit more about who you are and what you do? And you have kind of a recent exciting update in that bio. I'm hoping you'll sort of sprinkle in there as well. Welcome, my friend.

Erika Cartledge

Yeah, absolutely. So, first of all, you didn't botch the bio, and if you could just introduce me every time I walk into a room, that'd be great.

Phil Wagner

Deal. Deal.

Erika Cartledge

I love that. So thank you for such a warm introduction. As Phil said, I'm Erika Cartledge. I like to say that I am not in the fashion business. I'm in the confidence business. And so I am the personal stylist and image architect behind Your Chic is Showing. And as Phil said, I help people cultivate their confidence using fashion and style. I also have 13 years of experience in the finance industry and almost five years of experience in the nonprofit space. So a lot of breadth of experience. And so the really exciting development that Phil is talking about is that I am a part of Goldman Sachs 1 million Black Women initiative, and I am in the inaugural cohort of their Black in Business program. And this program is focused on female sole proprietors who are starting businesses or are running businesses and helping give them the tools and information to grow and scale their businesses. So as you think about, black female entrepreneurs are the fastest sector of entrepreneurs that are growing. So they're starting businesses. We're starting them at a faster rate. But the other flip side of that is that most businesses go out of business within the first five years.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Erika Cartledge

And so, part of Goldman's diversity initiative is to focus on black women in a variety of different areas and industries, and sectors. And so black in business is the one that focuses on black female entrepreneurs. And the great thing about it is they are using that as a pipeline to move us into their 10,000 Small Businesses program. They've helped, like, 23,000 or something like that. But this has been an incredible program. It's like being back in school. So we have sessions four days a week. I've got homework and everything else. But it is elevating me as a business owner and an entrepreneur, and a CEO. So it's just been an incredible program. And thanks to Goldman Sachs for putting their money where their mouth is, right? So they're talking about billion-dollar investments into the black community, and this is just one way that they're doing it.

Phil Wagner

That fits perfectly with where we're going. But we have to pause and say, my gosh, what an honor. But knowing you and your work, duh, of course, because, again, you are driving change, and you are leading with such a focus on changing culture around this. So I appreciate the work you do and really excited to see this honor bestowed to you. All right, so let's talk about what we're here to talk about today. Your Chic is Showing is in the confidence industry. And we're here today to talk about something that I think is one of the tendrils of that, which is dignity. We want to center a conversation on human dignity, but also sort of black dignity specifically. I love Donna Hicks work. It's a foundation to what I do when I teach DEI leadership courses. And I think part of what I love about that work the most is it takes not just DEI but leadership in general and boils it down to an explicit focus on dignity. I think dignity is a way to work against the theater that is DEI work. So much of the DEI industrial complex is about optics, and I think dignity is an anecdote to that. So let's talk about black dignity for a bit. How does that term sit with you? Can you contextualize the idea of dignity for us based on your own experiences?

Erika Cartledge

Yeah, so I've been thinking a lot about that. I love the term, and here's why. So when I think about dignity and allowing for people to have dignity, the base level of that is seeing someone. Right. And it's seeing yourself and then having other people actually truly see you. Right. And that, I think, to your point, about it being antidote to sort of the performative nature that can come with DEI. When you actually see someone, it's no longer performative because you are comprehending them and realizing them as a human being, a multi-dimensional person. And so, so much of the work that I do is around giving people dignity because, for better or worse, how we show up, how we present ourselves, how people receive us, how they perceive us, is tied to how we are dressing and how we carry ourselves. And a lot of times, we don't allow ourselves to have dignity, right? So when you aren't allowing yourself to have dignity, when you are not recognizing realizing yourself as a whole multi-dimensional person, that manifests in your wardrobe, and it manifests in how you show up, right? And so in, this idea of dignity is so interesting because it's internal. But so much of what comes at us externally helps us either decide we're worthy of having dignity or not, right? So I think about my plus-size clients, right? And you are told you don't deserve to take up space. You don't deserve to be here. You don't deserve to show up. So what that internalizes to you is, I don't deserve dignity. I don't deserve to be who I am and to take up space. And so then that manifests, and I wear clothes to hide. Whether it's, I wear things to hide and make myself look smaller. I wear things to hide and blend in and disappear. You are now manifesting that. And so then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because now you don't look the part because you don't believe it. But then people don't take you seriously. People don't allow for that dignity. And so it's really interesting when I do my styling, I'm always like, it's 20% the clothes on your body, and it's 80% this hard work that we do because I have to get you to believe you deserve to show up. You are powerful. You deserve to take up space. You deserve to have dignity and have people see you. And then, once you believe that, then we can manifest it on the outside. I can find you cute clothes, whatever the size is, right? So I love doing that and helping people realize you are worthy, and you're worthy right here, right now. You don't have to be a milestone. You don't have to be a size. You don't have to be a certain race. You don't have to be a gender. You are worthy right here, right now. And so then, if I take this into black dignity and thinking about that, that is something that, as a black woman, I work to instill into my kids every day, right? Because this idea of dignity and having dignity and being able to be seen, it doesn't just start when we show up in corporate. It doesn't just start when we start working at a company. It starts when we're kids. My son had an experience where there's another little black boy in his daycare. They both have curly hair, they're in the same class, they play together, and so kids mix them up all the time. And I had an instance where a child called my son the other child's name, and I said, no, hey, this is James. James, can you say hi? And the dad got really upset at me for correcting her. Oh, it doesn't matter. It does matter.

Phil Wagner

It does matter. Absolutely.

Erika Cartledge

My child having a name. My childhood identity absolutely matters. And he's two and a half, so he's not always big enough to advocate for himself. So my job is to do that and to allow him, at two, to have dignity. Because if you think about the trajectory, if he's constantly being dehumanized or having his identity stripped away, and the other child is on a trajectory of everyone going, it's okay, it doesn't matter. Then when they work together, when they're 25 and 30 and 35, and she's his manager, she's been taught black people don't need dignity. I don't need to see them. And so now she's bringing that into a workplace, and now he's fighting whatever workplace politics there are on top of this dignity conversation.

Phil Wagner

There's so many reasons why it absolutely matters, right? I mean, even going back to Donna Hicks work, it's an acceptance of identity violation. It's a recognition violation. It's an acknowledgment violation. There are safety issues there. I don't want to put your kid's name out to the world, but kid A and kid B, if I say it doesn't matter if kid B goes by kid A's name when I refer to them. What happens when one of those is running across the street, and I say the name, and I have just cued the other kids a little it's a safety violation. There's so many levels of inhumanity or dignity violation, I think, present there. So I want to talk about, particularly in the context of DEI work in the world of work. We talk a lot about respectability politics, and I think a lot of people confuse dignity for respect, and I see those as two very different terms. I'm wondering if you do as well. Any insights?

Erika Cartledge

I definitely see them as two different terms. I think it is possible to respect someone or respect what they do without necessarily giving them or assigning dignity to them. I don't think you can assign dignity to someone without also respecting them.

Phil Wagner

That's a good way to put it.

Erika Cartledge

And so when I think about it that way, I can take so many examples in my life and my career where I know people respect what I do, but in the same breath, they have shown me that there is no place for dignity, there is no place for identity. I blend into the sea of black people that they may or may not have met, and I think then respectability politics gets into that, right? Because it's layered into the well, I respect you and you do a good job, so you have to behave this way. You have to behave in the way that I'm expecting you to behave. You have to conform to something, and I'm expecting you to do it because I do think you're good at your job, or I do think you're smart, or whatever that is. But if you really allowed me to have dignity, then you would say, I understand why that's not okay. I understand why you're reacting this way. I understand you are not an angry black woman. But there is a massive microaggression or macroaggression that was leveled against you, and you are having a natural response, and we are telling you to respond in a certain way to something that we have no experience with. Right? And so once you allow someone some dignity, then you can understand the behaviors, and you stop trying to put them in this box and say, well, if you would just soften it or if you would make it palatable. You don't tell white women to make things palatable. Right.

Phil Wagner

Ever.

Erika Cartledge

We definitely don't tell white men to make things palatable.

Phil Wagner

We don't tell white men nothing. I know, yeah.

Erika Cartledge

So why do I have to say the same thing but now make it palatable for you? I definitely think there are two separate issues.

Phil Wagner

The way it plays out is quite extreme because the flip side of respectability politics leads to Trevon, leads to George. I mean, it leads to acts of violence. So you don't fit in that box. The stakes are high. And so I think the respect thing a nice first step, certainly never enough. And even with what you do in the entrepreneurship circle, I think a lot of people probably respect what you do. But I'm certain I know, I've heard you speak about this, that respecting what you do is say, oh, she does good work. I want to pick her brain without compensating her. That's the dignity. That's the difference. Dignity is saying, I respect what she does and I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. It's Goldman saying she's great, and I am going to fund that. I am going to incentivize her to keep being great. And so I think there's an action difference between those two.

Erika Cartledge

That is a great example of it. I think exactly to your point about investing in, compensate, or even negotiating with people, right? I get people who are like, I want to pay you, but I don't want to pay your rate. And I know for a fact you're not over here trying to negotiate and get someone else to come down on their rates. And so, yeah, exactly to your point about allowing for that dignity and say, well, just because I'm a black female entrepreneur, you think I should charge $1,000 less. You think my prices are too high. I know you're not in someone else's inbox saying that the prices are too high, right?

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some dignity violations. Those are those times to me where our dignity or even just sort of through an observational lens, the dignity of others is not honored. How might we think about dignity violations playing out in the workplace? And I know there are a variety of different ways we could go in this conversation with what you do. I think even some of the professionalism standards that we uphold in the world of work are often coded as white or definitely coded as sort of thin-centric, just the nature of code-switching or the problematic nature of work culture fit, which often puts minoritized or historically underrepresented folks to them. I mean, there's so many different ways.

Erika Cartledge

There's so many ways.

Phil Wagner

I don't even know where to start the conversation.

Erika Cartledge

I want to touch on all of them.

Phil Wagner

Let's go, let's go.

Erika Cartledge

We could just go bullet by bullet by bullet. Right?

Phil Wagner

I know.

Erika Cartledge

So let's talk a little bit about the obvious tie into my work as a stylist, which is around thin-centric, eurocentric, just standards of your appearance, right? And how you show up. And especially in the finance industry, they are so archaic and antiquated in a lot of ways. And so I can even think about she's probably not listening to this, but I had a boss when I was a salesperson, and in the summertime, it is too hot to wear your hair straightened and pressed. So I'm like, okay, I wear the hair curly the way it grows out of my head. And I remember I came to work one day, she put her hands in my head in front of everyone and said, what is this? What are you doing? Which is a dignity violation. It's a physical violation of my space. It is a violation of me literally showing up as myself because I have the hair that grows out of my head. There's the violation of you doing it and performing this act in front of all of these people. And then there's another violation because everyone watched her do it, and no one said a word.

Phil Wagner

Which is also dignity violation. Right. You talk about bystander intervention all the time, and then when push comes to shove, nobody pipes in.

Erika Cartledge

So there's that piece of it. There is the commentary on bodies. Oh, you lost 20 pounds and people think it's a compliment, and you think it's a good thing.

Phil Wagner

Been there.

Erika Cartledge

Yeah, you know, you don't invite the conversation. Why is my body, and what is happening with it?

Phil Wagner

Not an art piece.

Erika Cartledge

Yeah, it's not an art piece. I'm not on display. This isn't a conversation topic. It's not a coffee table book. Like backup. Right?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Erika Cartledge

So there's that piece of it. I think a lot about, especially, black women's bodies. We are built differently, right? We got curves. We got butts. We got all of the things. So there are things that I see other people wear to the office. And I'm like, I can't wear that. Not because it's inappropriate, not because I shouldn't be wearing it, but just because of the way that my body is. I will be perceived differently.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Erika Cartledge

People will have comments, people will say things, and there's the dignity violation of I should be able to wear the things that I want to wear. But also, you don't. Again, my body is not a topic for conversation. God, like, do not be pregnant in the workplace. Because then it's the dignity violations. It's the touching your belly. It's the all invasive. It's everything, right? So I think there's the very natural, kind of like physical dignity violations. But then I think even for me, the parts that are more difficult, the code-switching because it's exhausting, right?

Phil Wagner

Constantly.

Erika Cartledge

So I have code-switched my whole life, right? I went to a predominantly white private schools my whole life, but then I would be in church and hanging out with my friends that were outside of school. And so I was already. I've been code-switching since I could talk, right?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Erika Cartledge

And so it came naturally. I didn't realize how exhausting it was until we were in the pandemic and. Everyone was home, and I didn't have to go physically be in white-centered spaces. And if something was too much, I could turn my camera off. I could step away, right? And so then to go back to now we're all in person and having to do that, I was exhausted in a way that I'm like, was I always this tired? And I didn't realize it. Which I think that's exactly what it was. And it wasn't until I could turn it off, right? And I could turn it off for a number of reasons, because of the social and political climate, I could just be like, I'm not doing this today, because we were all stuck at home. I could show up in my head wrap on a meeting, and nobody was going to say anything, right? Whereas I might not do that if I'm physically going into the office. And so I remember that even being kind of more exhausting than some of the wild comments and things that people would fly, let fly. But then I think then I also noticed the unchecked nature when there would be microaggressions, right? So one microaggression. I started my job in fundraising with another woman who was a black woman. We look nothing alike. I was pregnant for most of the time that we worked together. And people were constantly calling us the wrong name. I mean, constantly. And that's annoying in and of itself. But to have coworkers and people who knew me not step in and say, well, no, this is Erika and this is that person, that's almost worse, because then it's like, do you see my dignity? Do you see my humanity? Because you have watched this person.

Phil Wagner

Withering in front of their eyes.

Erika Cartledge

Right, right.

Phil Wagner

Where's the responsibility?

Erika Cartledge

Those are the things where I think it chips away at your dignity and at your humanity. But I also think that's low-hanging fruit.

Phil Wagner

Exactly. Everybody is like, I don't want to get in DEI work cause I don't know what I could do. And I'm not schooled in this. You can intervene when somebody calls somebody the wrong name. That is the lowest-hanging fruit.

Erika Cartledge

That is low-hanging fruit. Or if you call the wrong name, apologizing and say, you know what? I know that you're Erika, and I'm really sorry I mixed it up.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, of course.

Erika Cartledge

Right. That is below 101. I don't even know what is under 101.

Phil Wagner

Remedial.

Erika Cartledge

And those are the kind of things that when people are like, how can I get involved? How can I make a change? By doing that, by stepping in and saying, no, that's not right. I mean, I had another experience where I was working really hope this person doesn't listen. But was working with someone, and she kept making comments about wanting to support a student at the school where I work but not wanting it to be a child of color whose parent is a doctor and just needs a little more financial aid. And it was a little more explicit than that. And because it was a pandemic, the conversation was on the phone. So she didn't see me. She didn't know I was a person of color. The other comment I get all the time is, oh, you don't sound like.

Phil Wagner

I knew you were going to say that.

Erika Cartledge

Right. So she kept saying it over and over and I'm like, so I got off the call and I called my boss and I was like, so, hey, I know I'm the director of Major Gifts. I know they make major Gifts and they make a lot of money. Here's why I can't move forward with this donor unless you step in or someone else can take over with it. And he stepped in and he was like, I'll take over. I will also talk to them and make sure that they know and understand what they're doing. And so that's the opposite side of someone seeing my humanity and seeing my dignity and saying, I'm not going to leave you to fight that battle. I'll go fight the battle.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I think DEI work certainly collides with development work in more ways than we might ever suppose. I mean, I know even here at William & Mary, we have a very complex and not always flattering history. With that comes money, named buildings, statues that we are constantly negotiating. So I think maybe that's a whole other episode in and of itself.

Erika Cartledge

That's a whole separate podcast.

Phil Wagner

I got to give props to our advancement and development teams here, who really do it right and who take that stand. But as you give that story reminded all of those comments of even as you say, you don't look like what you sound like. Just chiseling away at full and authentic selves, which is the very thing we're supposed to be bringing into the world of work. Right? That's what we talk about.

Erika Cartledge

Exactly, yes.

Phil Wagner

Just chiseling away, and I think that is why dignity violations are so monumental, because it's just slow, almost like seemingly unnoticeable. Chiseling away at identity.

Erika Cartledge

You don't notice it until you do.

Phil Wagner

Until you do, and then it's too late. And there we have burnout. Here we have exiting from the world of work or from specific jobs. That is why we are faced with so many of the problems in the workforce, I think, that we are currently faced with.

Erika Cartledge

Yes, absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Let's talk about when we see those dignity violations playing out. So I want to go here with you because I know you'll get me on track. I'm a white guy. I'm a white guy. I look like what I sound like, y'all. Okay, so I'm nervous to say the fix here is to teach or equip folks of color to become more resilient. That seems so icky to me. Right? I don't want to teach resilience. I want to change culture. So I know that's toxic thinking, but I also want to create space for us to talk about how to navigate the true emotional and cognitive burden, the very things you talk about here of those negative violations. I think what I'm asking here plays out in two parts. What insights do we give to dominant majority folks? Folks like me, men, white folks, people with dominant identity power configurations? What are some of the dignity violations you see committed by those folks that we should be aware of and address? And how can we equip them to do some awareness raising? So that's part one. I ask really loaded questions, my friend. I'm so sorry.

Erika Cartledge

It's okay.

Phil Wagner

And then two, of course, while we are pushing for a better world and a better world of work that acknowledges the dignity of others, what do we say to black and brown folks? To women? To other folks from marginalized communities about how to navigate times where their dignity has been violated? As we're working on the culture too. Does that make sense?

Erika Cartledge

Yes.

Phil Wagner

So sort of two domains. All right, cool. Help me figure this out from your perspective because you're out there doing the real work.

Erika Cartledge

Yeah. So I think I want to answer the second question first about.

Phil Wagner

Go for it.

Erika Cartledge

What do you say to people who are experiencing it? And I think just it can't be stated enough in our DEI director at our school who, if I can plug someone else to be on this podcast, you should get her.

Phil Wagner

Love to have her. Absolutely.

Erika Cartledge

But she always says, believe black women. Believe women.

Phil Wagner

Yes.

Erika Cartledge

So the fundamental number one thing you can do, even if you've never experienced it, even if you've never seen it, even if I'm telling you something that happened with someone that you know, and you're just like, I don't understand. You have to believe the lived experiences of people.

Phil Wagner

This is Donna Hicks work. I mean, one of the principles and elements of dignity that she talks about is benefit of the doubt. Treat people as if they're trustworthy. Start with the premise that they have good motives. They're operating from integrity. So believe them.

Erika Cartledge

Believe them because there's no world where I'm going to come to my boss and say, this quarter million dollar donor said this really offensive. Right? I understand the implications of having a difficult conversation with a donor, how that financially affects the school and where I work. So there's a world where I'm going to bring something up lightly, or I'm going to make something up. So you got to believe people. The same way we let white boys do all types of crazy. And I work in a school, right? So I know the craziness. Oh, boys will be boys. They're just because we give them that's a whole other issue.

Phil Wagner

It's a whole other episode too.

Erika Cartledge

They constantly get the benefit of the doubt, right?

Phil Wagner

Always.

Erika Cartledge

And so we've got to start believing people. And so the number one thing I think you can do, and again, this is not you don't have to take a class, you don't have to read a book. Believe what people are telling you. That is the place to start. Because if I feel believed, then I automatically feel supported. And I feel like we can effect change, create change. We can have these conversations. If you don't believe me, you go out, and now you're like, she's making that up. It's not that bad. I've never seen it. So that's one thing. So now you're hardened to whatever other future people will say, and I don't say anything anymore. So now I internalize everything. And so just at a base level, I think that's that I think you've got to give people of color, women, people in the LGBTQIA community, you've got to also realize, like, we've already been resilient because, by nature of who we are in our identity, it is forced resilience.

Phil Wagner

That's so good.

Erika Cartledge

And so I hate when people are like, you have to be more resilient. I'm like, how much more resilient?

Phil Wagner

How much more?

Erika Cartledge

Do I have to be? I'm a black mom raising. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Phil Wagner

And when you are resilient again, what happens? Look at how it plays out on the streets. When you do stand up for rights, what happens? You subject yourself to violence.

Erika Cartledge

Exactly.

Phil Wagner

So don't come at me with that because that doesn't play out in worthwhile or advantageous ways.

Erika Cartledge

Right, exactly. So I'm like, don't tell people they have to be more resilient. Do not tell people how they have to communicate. It goes back to making things palatable. Right? How can I put this delicately?

Phil Wagner

You don't have to put it delicately.

Erika Cartledge

When people said knowing the difference between my two-and-a-half-year-old son and another person didn't matter, that wasn't palatable. Right? When people use the N-word. When people use the B word, when people use homophobic slurs, that's not palatable. So now, why do I, when you violated me, you violated my space, you violated my dignity? Suddenly I have to make it palatable for you to hear. So first of all, you violated me, but now I have to tell you, which is hard in and of itself to tell someone I've been violated in this way, but now I have to do it in a way that feels good for you and doesn't make you feel like, oh, you're not a bad person. You had this bad moment. Like, no. So stop telling people also how to talk about being violated or telling them they weren't violated at all. Well, they didn't really mean that.

Phil Wagner

Right? There's a mismatch. It's so ironic, the mismatch here, right? So you're talking about racial slurs, acts of violence, intentionally, just offensive discourse stacked up against the impalatability of natural hair, right? Or like saying things in a different vernacular. Like, these are not even apples and oranges. These are like apples and Cheetos. These are totally different. They are so mismatched. And I think calling out that hypocrisy is important. I think it is important.

Erika Cartledge

So I think that's just some kind of low level, which also, again, and I think this kind of answers both questions, but allowing people to also have safe spaces, right? So at our school for students, we have affinity spaces for different groups, and they have come under fire, if I'm honest, because you have parents whose child children don't fit into the affinity spaces that don't understand the need for the affinity space. But why would you understand the need for that? You and your children have always been the majority in every way. But even as a colleague, and I joke because I go to lunch with our director of DEI, and she and I always say, oh, we're having our black affinity meeting, but I need that space.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Erika Cartledge

I can talk to her in a way that I can't talk to other people. And so, creating the space for people to have affinity with other people who share the experiences that they have is another really powerful thing that other people and organizations, and corporations can do. Because the fact of the matter is when you are different, it is different.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Erika Cartledge

It shouldn't be, but it is.

Phil Wagner

It is.

Erika Cartledge

And so having someone that can just understand that. That can do a knowing look that is important. I even think about I'm not even a teacher in classrooms, and I have to tell you when black families meet me, they come and give me a hug. And I'm always like, I know I'm not in a classroom, but if your kid needs anything, here's my office. Tell them they can come here, right? And that's important. So, again, having the affinity, having a support system is another way that you can create dignity and space for people and really show that you respect them, and it's not just talking and talking points. So I think that's important. And then, let's go back to the first question now.

Phil Wagner

The tough one.

Erika Cartledge

Let me make sure I'm understanding this. You really want to know what do you all need to be doing? What do you need to be learning?

Phil Wagner

I think so many folks in dominant majority groups just don't create space to sense make. There is a profound lack of self-reflection. And so, you know, you've given us so many insights. Maybe your insights have already sort of answered the question itself of how do you become more aware. And I don't mean to give dominant majority folks, white folks, the out, like, become more aware. You got Dr. Google at your disposal. Do some digging, open your eyes. But is there any sort of maybe non-obvious things to incentivize deeper reflection in the space to be more intentional about acknowledging the dignity of others, particularly those whose dignity is violated?

Erika Cartledge

Yeah, I mean, I think so. That's such an interesting question, right? Because a lot of this stuff is, like, mandated. You have to read this book. You have to study this. You have to listen to this podcast. But I think if you can intentionally, and this is going to be like an off-the-wall answer a little bit, but if you can intentionally seek out experiences from cultures that aren't yours. So I go back, and I think about when Black Panther the movie came, right? That was a cultural experience that everybody, right, got behind everybody. And this was, I mean, the way that they weaved an African culture. There were jokes from, like, black culture in America, the costuming, the thoughtfulness, all of that. You were immersed into that world. And it was a superhero movie. What was it, like one of the top five or whatever around the world, right? And so that is a cultural experience that you can immerse yourself in, and you can get a taste of what it is. And then you realize, oh, being black isn't just about being an enslaved person or human trafficked, right? Being black isn't about constantly having to struggle and constantly having to overcome. There's a reason there's a thing. Black girl magic and black boy joy. Right?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Erika Cartledge

Because we are more than just being enslaved, we are more than just the Emancipation Proclamation. We are more than just Martin Luther King and Barack Obama and these people that we have cherry-picked to highlight and being the model minority, all of that, right? And so that, to me, feels like it's low stakes. Right. I'm not going and saying, I mean, I would love for you to read Austin Channing Brown and Heather McKee and all of this, right? But I'm not even saying you have to do that. Watch a season of Martin, right, to get a different. Go, and maybe the Cosby show is a little problematic now, but go watch the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or even the New Bel-Air, right?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Erika Cartledge

Get a different feel for a black experience. Go watch Living Single, which is literally what my 20s was like with me and my friends, right? It wasn't struggle. It wasn't the wire. We were living single. And so I think the more that you can, in simple, easy ways, immerse yourself in, and I'm not just saying in black culture, right? Do it for other cultures. Do it for native cultures, do it for South Asian cultures, pacific island culture, right? Like, do it for everyone and immerse yourself in that. If you even want an even lower-stakes way to do it, do it with your kids. Go get your kids books like eyes that kiss at the corners. We are the water protectors. You can do that, and you'll start to see the humanity and dignity in these other cultures while also raising a child where it won't have to be an effort because it will just always be what they've always known, right? So, my son, he's two and a half. He's like 150 books in this house. We have intentionally curated a library that has everything from stories about Shabbat to stories about India to stories about native people in America to stories about antiracist baby. Right? Because I don't want it to be an effort for him. I just want him to be like, yeah, all families are different. My family has a mom and a dad, and I have two half-siblings, and that family has two moms, and that family has a grandma. And I just want it to be normal for him and not to be an effort. And so your kids are also a great way to just start normalizing all of that without these high stakes. Oh, I feel like I'm going to get into these contentious conversations, but the more you can recognize the humanity in us, the more you'll be actually prepared for that because then it will upset you when you see someone dehumanizing or taking away dignity.

Phil Wagner

And you just gave us the anecdote to cultural misappropriation, too. Like, go see Black Panther. Maybe don't cornrow your hair if you're white. You can appreciate, but there's a recipe for appreciation. No, I think that's so profound. Again, it's exposure. I mean, that's the very premise of the contact hypothesis, right? The more you come into contact with others who are not like you, you deepen your own understanding. It's then easy to recognize those dignity violations, perhaps some that you perpetuate too. And, yeah, I hope you do some deeper digging and reading and exposure, but maybe, just maybe, there's a lower entry point and easier entry point than what you might suspect. So I have one more question for you, which is about embedding dignity into particularly DEI organizational structures, but maybe just organizational structures writ large. Any ideas on how we fully embed this focus on dignity into our work? To ensure we aren't just contributing to DEI theater or doing another check-the-box activity. Any insights on how we institutionalize dignity?

Erika Cartledge

So that's a loaded question.

Phil Wagner

I know.

Erika Cartledge

So I think about it in a few different ways, right? Because when we are trying to change the fabric of an organization, or I even think about building the fabric of my business, what kind of business do I want to create? Because I will not be a solopreneur forever. And so part of building the dignity into your organization and your institution, there's the teaching and the training and the working with the people that is already there. But I think one of the best ways to do it is to think about who are you bringing into your institution. How are you talking to new hires or people in interviews about DEI beyond the performativeness of it? Do you have a set of framework or questions you are asking people to dig deeper into that to understand that? Right? So how are we creating the culture? How are we making sure we align what we're doing with who we're bringing in here? Because if who I bring in doesn't have my commitment to DEI, am I really committed to it? Right? If who I'm bringing in doesn't actually see the dignity in the people I'm working with, am I actually committed to their dignity? And so I think that's such an important thing. And I think about it a lot from working in a school and what kind of families are we bringing in. We say in our mission that we celebrate diversity. Do the families represent that? Do the faculty and staff represent that?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Erika Cartledge

Are we so willing to commit to that that we say we have this open position? It needs to be filled, but we lack staff of color, so we are not filling it until we find a person of color. Right. Because the qualifications of a person that's not of color can be here, but we say, oh, the person of color has to be here. Right. We hire people that don't take all the boxes all the time, but suddenly when it has to be a person of color, they have to take all the boxes plus 27 other boxes that we didn't know were boxes until we decided.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Erika Cartledge

And so I think there's that. I told you I have been thinking about this.

Phil Wagner

I'm so glad.

Erika Cartledge

But I think that is important. And even I think about it as a small business owner, one of my core values is that everybody in every space body has a place here. So when I think about bringing on clients, I don't just think about, can you pay me the money? Can you hire me? I think about, are there diverse body types. If someone goes to look at my portfolio, will they see themselves there? I think about it because I have a lot of clients of color, so I have to be intentional about I'm going to put some of my white clients on the website. I'm going to put I have a couple of nonbinary clients. So even thinking about that and being intentional around who I accept in when I'm hiring people, if diversity and access to feeling confident isn't at the core of who you are, I can't have you working here because the work that I do is too important to people and how they feel about themselves. And so, in a school, it is too important for the way these students see themselves at a corporation. If I don't feel good, how can I go out and sell your product? How can I go out and represent a company? It is too important to the work that you're doing, wherever you are, to just be base level and surface level. And does it mean people are going to have to go? Yeah, probably.

Phil Wagner

So good.

Erika Cartledge

But that's okay because there's more than enough qualified people to fill in the gap. I mean, it sounds crazy, but I think the only way you're going to build up a place that really makes the space for dignity is by dismantling the first one first.

Phil Wagner

I'm like tingly. I'm processing. I'm processing. I love this. And I think to the point. Speaking on your fashion experience, I know you're in the confidence business, but the fashion industry is not just sort of supplemental here. It really driven a lot of representative change, too, and I appreciate how you model that and how you weave all of those things together. This has been so good. I have one final question, which is the easiest one? Please tell our listeners where they can find you, where and how they can support you because you are doing the work. It is good work. I'm excited to follow it and support it. How can our listeners do the same?

Erika Cartledge

Yeah, well, thank you for that opportunity. So you can find me on my website. It is your yourchicisshowing.com and Instagram, and Facebook. So Instagram is, again, Your Chic is Showing, and Facebook, if you put in Your Chic is Showing, you type in your chic, I'll be the first thing that pops up. So that is definitely where you can find me. And I would encourage you. I think a lot of people get intimidated when they hear fashion stylist because they think, celebrities, I have to be a millionaire. And I do have some clients like that. But one of my core values is that fashion style and elevating confidence should be accessible to anyone, anywhere. And so I have a lot of programs that are at accessible price points so that even if you feel like I don't have, you know, XYZ dollars to invest, you can get a rapid session with me for, like, $50. So you can have that because that is important to me. It is important to me. Your financial status shouldn't dictate if you deserve to feel confident or not. It's available to you right now. And so I just would encourage you to visit the website. Hang out with me on Instagram. That's where I am. And I'm always talking to people on Instagram, people love to DM me, and I love to talk back. So please come hang out with me there, and I would love to get to know you.

Phil Wagner

Excellent. Well, of course, this is just one of many conversations to follow. I'm so thankful to have met you. You've brought a lot of insight to my life, into my family's life. So much love, much appreciation, much thanks. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today, Erika. Truly a privilege.

Erika Cartledge

My pleasure. Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• Marcelle's journey to her position at Ultranauts, Inc.
• What is the preferred language when talking about autistic people
• How neurodivergent experiences differ throughout the globe
• How Marcelle's advocacy journey began
• How Marcelle's journey has informed her advocacy work at Ultranauts Inc.
• What qualities are included in Ultranauts, Inc's hiring initiatives
• How the qualities of an effective leader are being challenged
• What the pandemic exposed in regard to neurodivergent awareness
• How leaders can better support neurodivergent employees

Transcript

Marcelle Ciampi

Who says that you have to make eye contact and be very good at communication skills to be an effective leader? I'm reading all of these qualities and traits of effective leaders, and I'm thinking, no, no, I've been a very effective leader.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome listeners to yet another podcast episode here on Diversity Goes to Work. Today I'm delighted to welcome Marcelle Ciampi, also known by her pen named Samantha Craft. Marcelle is a respected autistic author and international ambassador, and she's been featured in over hundreds of events around the world. She is best known for her writings found in the well-received book Everyday Asperger's, and some of her works, including the Autistic Traits List, have been translated into multiple languages and are widely shared in counseling offices globally. By day, she's a senior neurodiversity advisor and ambassador at Ultranauts Incorporated, an engineering firm with an autism hiring initiative that's been featured in the New York Times. There, Ciampi is credited for largely architecturing an innovative universal design approach to workplace inclusion. I'm so excited to speak with her. Welcome, Marcelle. We are so excited to have you on our podcast. And as we begin, I'd love to ask you to share a little bit more about your story. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, maybe how you went from school teacher? Because I know, that's part of that story too to consultant for major organizations and then maybe on some of your writings like Everyday Asperger's or the Autistic traits list.

Marcelle Ciampi

Fantastic. Sure. And thank you so much for carving out time to have me on this platform today. It's a privilege to be here, and welcome to everyone who is tuned in to our conversation. I'm looking forward to a fruitful discussion today. Your question involving my journey. So I was a school teacher, I was an elementary school teacher, and a middle school teacher, also pre-K and some adult education as well in California. And after many years of teaching, I became a stay-at-home mother, primarily to raise my three sons. My middle son is on the autism spectrum, all my sons are in their 20s now, and one of my other sons is also neurodivergent individual, as am I. I left teaching to be at home and home-schooled my middle son. And after several years of being a stay-at-home mom, I discovered Ultranauts Inc. It was a small advertisement on social media, very small company at the time, about ten workers. And I was brought on as their very first recruiter. This was about 2014. Their very first recruiter, their first community manager. I later also became the recruitment manager, outreach specialist, and so forth. So I've had hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of conversations with professionals aligned with autism hiring and neurodiversity hiring initiatives around the globe. As part of my job role, I help to architect and design an inclusive hiring process as an inclusive talent acquisition recruitment process for the company. Ultronauts did a unique thing that I have yet to see with any other autism hiring and neurodiversity hiring initiatives. They put an actual autistic person at the core of their talent acquisition team, which was me. And because of the nature of my mind and my neurology, I set out to do my very, very best work and became intensely focused on how to create an inclusive recruitment process for not only autistic individuals and those are similar neurological profiles but for the human talent pole in general talent pool, I should say. And that resulted in over now 3000 hours of study into best recruitment practices and hiring practices, and inclusivity practices. Because of this expertise that I gained not only firsthand from my work and recruiting and hiring, and interviewing autistic individuals but also in my studies and research, and conversations with over 10,000 autistic people around the world, I was able to hone a lot of knowledge and wisdom. And this has attracted leaders in Fortune 500 companies and similar agencies to me. And they've asked me to share some of my knowledge through workplace discussions, panels, forums, webinars, podcasts, and, more recently, a workshop series on what is neurodiversity and how can we best support our neurodiversion colleagues. And I also focus on Universal Design Inclusivity which is how to support the general workforce, everybody. How can we make accessibility for everyone in the workplace, not just specific neurotypes or people with specific abilities?

Phil Wagner

And I appreciate how you volunteered your expertise, even for our own internal programs. I know you work with our part-time MBA students in our Diversity in the Workplace course to share their to sharpen them in this space. So you are clearly a person who is on the move, and you have so much expertise, which takes me to my second question. It's a simple one, but I think it's important. Which is, do you have any preferences and or insights into language that we should use? So in this space, there's a lot of terms that get tossed around that we're mindful of person-first language, you say person with autism, person with ASD, autistic person. I know we throw around on the spectrum and that's been sort of misunderstood, I think. We don't actually talk about it as a true spectrum, more like a gradient. So I'm always very mindful to ask my guests how should we talk about what we're talking about.

Marcelle Ciampi

That's an excellent inquiry. Thank you. And thank you for your consideration and empathy there. For myself, I'm not very particular, but because I serve as a role model, and an ambassador, and an educator, I try to stay updated on what the autistic culture and autistic community wishes. And like any other culture, take, for example, LGBTQIA plus community. I want to honor that culture. So while everybody's going to have their own individual preferences, I'm trying to look towards the majority of the autistic community. And in the most recent polls, such as Autistic Not Weird 2022, that you can Google and search for, I believe it's more than 80% of autistics are now saying they prefer autistic over with autism. And so I'm honoring that. Me personally, it doesn't matter to me, but I honor that. And so, I would ask autistic. I'm also comfortable with on the autism spectrum. On the spectrum can be a little vague. What is the spectrum? Aren't we all on some type of spectrum one way or another? But on the autism spectrum, I'd say it's a more safe, inviting word than saying with autism for me personally and from other people.

Phil Wagner

No, that's excellent insight, and I appreciate that. And I love the word you use, which is honor because that maps closely onto a closely felt value I have in this space, which is upholding the principle of human dignity. When you have an acknowledgment of dignity towards a person, you can honor them in that way.

Marcelle Ciampi

That's really interesting because I coined the word diversity with dignity out of a lot of the research and studies and some of the personal experiences that I went through of how to hold a space of dignity for people. And so, yes, language is so essential in honoring that space of dignity for people. So thank you for that.

Phil Wagner

No, absolutely. And dignity, I think it has to be foundation. I go back to Donna Hicks work so often. If you're familiar with that work, and it's so simple, but that work on dignity affirmations and dignity violations just to me, anytime I come across a complex problem in the DEI space, almost always, if not always, I can point it back to dignity in some way. So it really keeps me grounded. So I'm glad to be speaking to a like-minded person here. Look, you're a well-respected international ambassador. I know you shared a little bit of your story on sort of how you have found yourself in advocacy. I'd like to talk a little bit more about that international advocacy work. I'm curious, in your research, in your scope of expertise, can you share out share about, excuse me, how experiences of neurodiversity might play out differently across the globe? I mean, has your research shaped your perspective on international perspectives on autism in any way?

Marcelle Ciampi

I would say it has to a degree. I've spoken with people in all parts of the world, including mental health professionals in Ecuador and social workers in Mexico, and social workers in India. And, of course, we're all part of a societal norms, and what society dictates how we should act, what we should talk about, what we should keep private. So from each culture, especially when you're talking about Western culture as opposed to non-Western cultures, there are different social expectations and norms, and how autism is perceived and talked about in different subsets of society differs. I would say that I have actually seen differences just from home to home, city to city, even in the United States, where some people are view autism being autistic as an identity, as a way of being, as a way of what I call the three P's perceiving, processing, and presenting in the world. How we perceive, how we process and present in the world. Well, and people see it as part of the social model of disability, where disability is partially an artifact of society not completely put on that one individual, where on the other end of the spectrum, you might find individuals, whether this is in the United States or other parts of the world, where they see autism through a narrow medical deficit lens. And how someone perceives and processes autism itself affects how they present and how they interact with the word and with the notion connotations, et cetera. I know that in speaking with people from some countries outside of the United States, there's still a lot of stigmatism around it, and they're actually warned or told. Don't you mention that? But I would like to share a story about my own advocacy journey and how it actually started to give you insight to what happens here in the United States as well if that's okay.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, please. We're all about storytelling here.

Marcelle Ciampi

I think we can heal and connect so much through storytelling and narratives, and that's lacking so much right now in our workplace cultures. And I'm seeing a trend that I welcome and applaud where more and more stories are happening and vulnerability and transparency. So I've shared this story before. One of the reasons that I started one of the primary reasons that I started writing, and I set out to write every day for a year and ended up writing for three years, three blogs, and over half million words online is because I was going to get a second master's degree in counseling at a local university several years ago. And while I was attending the university, I discovered that at that time the terminology was Asperger's, that I had Asperger's, and I let my professor know, my counselor suggested that I let the professor know. He was the head of the psychology department at the university. She thought it was pertinent that he knew that I was going through this diagnosis process because I was going to be a mental health professional. At least, that was my goal at the time. And I waited till after class, and when I approached the professor, I said, I wanted to let you know that I might possibly have Asperger's. Again, that was the terminology at the time. And I expected him. You know what they say about expectations. But I thought that he would, at least at minimum, offer me some guidance or support or understanding. What instead happened is he proceeded to shame me for 5 10 minutes. He accused me of inventing my autism so I could feel closer to my son. He asked if I was proud that I was announcing to the world that my brain and my son's brain were broken and so forth. I was highly traumatized from that event.

Phil Wagner

Oh, my goodness.

Marcelle Ciampi

And I started processing through writing ended up going to the dean. They mentioned that I should never speak of Asperger's at all in professional circles, that it had no place. And as a result, I ended up leaving that program.

Phil Wagner

Good.

Marcelle Ciampi

Which was a smart choice. It was a toxic environment. And as a result, I ended up writing. And my writing ended up reaching thousands and thousands of people around the world and has led thousands upon thousands of people to self-diagnosis or professional diagnose. So I call it my dark night of the soul that turned into something bright and light. And I wouldn't change any of it. But I share that as an example of it is ableism, stereotyping, discrimination. It's alive and well in the United States. It's not just in other countries. And I would receive emails and other communications from people of all walks of life. I don't even like to say walks anymore because of ableism, but all types of life, all colors of life, all sizes and shapes across the gender spectrum of life, of their experiences with professionals in trying to seek out a diagnosis. And there was this pattern over and over again of the same things that you cannot be autistic or then with Asperger's because you make eye contact because you know how to dress because you have decent hygiene, you held down the job, you have a degree, you have children, you are a parent, you've been married, so forth, on and on. And that's one of the things that led me to do more and more writing and more advocacy work and to speak out more because of these inequalities and equities and injustices and these myths and stereotypes about autistic people. We're all different. Some of us can't make any eye contact. Some of us cannot use our vocal cords to speak, but we still have a voice, we still communicate, we still have thoughts and ideas. And I don't really remember what my point was. My point is that's how my advocacy journey started. You had mentioned that and going globally, it's been an expansion of that. It's been an expansion of collecting other people's stories, sharing my stories. And one of the reasons we started the Diversity with Dignity Global Roundtable, we meet every quarter on zoom across the world. And it was because I was being contacted by other people about their stories, about their trials and tribulations, and challenges and questions. And I wanted to help to create a safe and brave space where people could ask questions and share stories because I'm only one person. I only have one perspective, and I only have one brain and heart that can only get stretched so far. I don't have unlimited energy and capacity. So that's why we created that, to have that global connection and to share resources and to network with one another.

Phil Wagner

And I think that's a dignity-oriented perspective, one that recognizes what's the common saying, if you've met a person with autism, you've met a person with autism. This is one person. These experiences are not monolithic. It is a very individualized experience through life. And so I think that that dignity approach really shines through, and gosh, I really appreciate you just talking about your own sense-making process. I've been very open with my diagnosis of having Tourette's and a few other coexisting conditions on this podcast, and it's through my conversations with my own therapist which shout out to all of the therapists out there and shout out to those of you that see therapists and prioritize your mental health. But what I've learned is that sometimes in our attempt to sense, make our own darkest moments or our own biggest struggles that really propel us to action. And so the story you share, it really resonates with me, and it's so impressive to see how you have turned that into direct advocacy that is clearly making an impact, particularly in the world of work. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about your work at Ultranauts Inc. So, I know you shared a little bit about what you do, but you've done a lot there, and you serve as the senior neurodiversity adviser and ambassador. Can you share a little bit about how your story has informed your advocacy at Ultranauts Inc?

Marcelle Ciampi

Yes, well, Ultranauts, first off, I would like to share is it was founded by two MIT graduates, and it's 100% onshore, 100% remote engineering firm. And one of the questions I get is, well, what do you do there? Not for myself, but what does the company do and to share to those that are tuned in, the engineers work alongside our clients company development team, and they write code that test software to identify those errors that come up during the software development life cycle. That's as brief as I can be, so people get an idea of what Ultranauts Inc. does.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Marcelle Ciampi

As far as my role, I help to establish different ways to create universal inclusivity, which we call the universal workplace at the company. I can go through some of the specific things that we do. One of the things is we make sure that our key point indicators, our KPIs, and our mission statements are actually aligned with what we are wanting to do so that our spouse values what we say we're doing towards diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is actually matching those implicit assumptions, what employees and workers are feeling and sensing about the workspace. We do a lot of work around reducing ambiguity. I'd like to disclose that I'm not only an autistic individual, but I also this year was diagnosed with ADHD, complex PDSD, and OCD. And I'm also dyslexic and dyspraxic and diagnosed gifted intellect. And all of that sometimes affects my working memory and the way that I present. So if I fumble across a word or something, that's typically what's going on. So I talked about the mission statement. We work towards reducing ambiguity, and some of the ways we do that is creating. I've helped to create handbooks on what is communication. Simple things that might seem simple to some people are more complex for those that are autistic, such as how long should an email be and who should I email about what? And what does a brief email look like? We also create agendas ahead of time, so people know what to expect. Our job descriptions are very, very specific. I've worked a lot on job descriptions, and I teach about that how to make a job description as specific and aligned with the actual job as possible. So it doesn't have things like great team player, you know, what does that even mean and how many people might look at that and question that.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Marcelle Ciampi

We also spend a lot of time getting to know and understand and support team members. That's something I helped to develop, where each of the team members has a biodex, what we call a biodex, and it talks about when they do best with feedback when are their best peak performance hours, what are their skills, what are some of their challenges. And that really helps with the management to understand the team that they're working for and those spiky profiles that we sometimes have as neurodivergent individuals. We focus time on understanding the history and culture of some of the underrepresented groups of the company, such as the LGBTQIA plus community and, the autistic community, those with PDSD like myself. And we do diversity and inclusion education. And I developed a Managing Stress and Anxiety in the Workplace series as well that I think any company, especially during these times, could benefit with their employees having key ideas about how to handle stress and anxiety in and outside of the workplace. We also do a lot of collection of feedback. Feedback is very important to us, and anonymous feedback when possible. We have 60-day follow-up calls asking employees how things are going. Do they understand their job role? Do they feel connected to their colleagues? Do they understand what their supervisor is doing? We have an independent audit of psychological safety outside of the company for our employees so we can have that accountability and monitor how employees are feeling as far as feeling sense of belonging and safe in the workplace. We look at those leading benchmarks and indicators and evaluate how we're doing continually. Another thing that I've helped with is focusing on our strengths, and we've actually brought in my fiance, my partner, J. David Hall, who runs the not-for-profit narrow guides. He's a coach for autistic people around the world. And he's autistic himself, as are his three children. And he does a strength-based approach of coaching with all of our employees if they are open to it, focusing on helping them navigate the workplace but also looking at their strengths. Some of the strengths I'm sure you're aware of that autistic people demonstrate that we've heard many times are such as pattern-seeking ability, that ability to really intensely focus and learn a lot of things. But some of the other strengths I'd like to mention also are a tenacity, this tenacious moral makeup. It's actually been shown in research that autistic people come to situations with less bias. It's been demonstrated through research. And also, I've known thousands of autistic individuals who would risk their own reputation for social justice. That is very important to them to be doing the right thing, whatever that means to that individual. And also, I think one of the most important things that autistic people can bring to that workplace is that those novel ways of looking and approaching situations, and you know that old saying, outside the box? I think it's even more than that. It's what's beyond outside the box, what's in that other dimension.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Marcelle Ciampi

Really deep layers. So a lot of my work has been focused on bringing inclusivity measures like the ones that I mentioned that not only help the autistic worker but help everybody there as much as possible. And that's that universal workplace approach.

Phil Wagner

That's it. That's it. I'm so glad you said that because that's what I kept thinking about in our first season. One of my colleagues, MaryBeth Asbury, wanted on to talk about size diversity, of all things. And in that, I love the visual that she gave us in that making accommodations for people who live life in larger bodies, making those accommodations in the workplace kind of works out well for everybody. Let people choose their own chairs, that's good for everybody. What you talked about, like, what are your productivity peaks? That's good for everybody. That is universal design. That is such a coherent DEI action philosophy. It just resonates so much with me. One of the things I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more on is Ultranauts autism hiring initiative. Can you share a little bit more about that initiative?

Marcelle Ciampi

Sure. So one of the things that we try to do is be a role model. And research has shown that when you're role modeling political correctness, like when you ask me what terminology should we use to self-identify. That actually brings more collaboration, more sense of safety in groups, and we role model that political correctness even in our recruitment design. One of the reasons I came up with diversity with dignity is because I didn't appreciate how some corporations went about with their autism hiring programs. And what I was seeing time and time again is people were being forced to disclose very personal information in order to get into a hiring program. And there were a lot of flaws with that, and it is shifting over the last eight years. There are a lot of flaws with that because I was getting word from some of these newly hired autistic individuals that they were being discriminated against from day one because their coworkers were told they're autistic. And their coworkers, to a degree, they're innocent. They see the stereotypes. They see the generalizations. They don't know what to expect. They come in thinking these myths that aren't true, that autistics lack empathy, that they can't tell jokes or get jokes.

Phil Wagner

Oh, I'm so glad you said.

Marcelle Ciampi

That can't be friends, et cetera. What I told my supervisor, the co-founder of Ultranauts years ago, and he was so highly appreciative, and he's given me so much freedom and flexibility in my role that has allowed me to flourish. And he's really tapped into my strengths. I told Rajesh, I said, the best way that I think about it is to substitute any other historically underserved, underrepresented oppressed group. For example, let's take our black and brown friends. Would we put them into a separate hiring program? Would we put women into a separate hiring program? No. It would be grounds for a lawsuit. So why is it okay to do this with autistic people? Because we're still seen as less than because we're still seen as deficit because autism is still seen as a quote-unquote disease, which it never was and never has been. And for that reason, then it must be okay to openly and publicly segregate the people. So I have been on my soapbox for years, saying, this is an injustice. This is not okay. If you were to corral and put 50 women in a room in a different hiring process than everybody else and evaluate them for a month, and then hire half of them and not the other, it wouldn't happen. There would be outrage. But because we are autistic people, it's still happening. So I tried my very best, and with the support of many people at Ultranauts, to make an inclusive hiring program that did not segregate so that everybody has the same benefits. Everyone gets what I created, which was a recruitment overview. So, as you know, autistic people sometimes have discomfort around unknowns, anxiety, and can be very inquisitive, and have lots of questions. So I would be getting lots of questions six, seven years ago from applicants, candidates. And so I started to collect all those questions and answer them and created a 10-13-page document that explained what happens from the beginning of our recruitment process till the end. But it wasn't just for autistic people. It was for anybody who applied, and it was for vocational counselors. It was for companies that were curious in what we were doing and role modeling for best practices and so forth. And other companies have adapted a similar approach. That's the beauty of universal design of a universal workplace. As you were mentioning, what works for one can work for many. I know, for myself. And I'm venturing to guess that if you were to apply for a job, you would love to have an overview of what to expect, right? What's the timeline?

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Marcelle Ciampi

What are the possible questions? Where can I go look for more resources? What happens if I'm not hired?

Phil Wagner

So good.

Marcelle Ciampi

So those types of things were at the center of our recruitment process. We really went into creating rubrics, interview rubrics that were as objective as possible. We're human beings, so there's always going to be some bias and being subjective in some form or another, but having a rubric and a scale and really analyzing each question so that it was specific and scenario-based and not judgment based. Research shows that so many people are hired based on whether or not you'd like to go down to the local pub with them and have some fish and chips right.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Marcelle Ciampi

Or how much ancillary, depending on how you look at it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, so problematic in so many different ways. But yeah.

Marcelle Ciampi

Yeah, so really looked at that how to eliminate as much bias and subjectivity as possible in the process and then also what happens once they're there. So much of these hiring initiatives that I was looking at were focused on diversity and not inclusivity. And that's a big, huge gap I'm still seeing.

Phil Wagner

Huge, absolutely.

Marcelle Ciampi

Is companies don't define the difference between diversity and inclusivity and what that looks like.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Marcelle Ciampi

And so there was handbooks and things written on how to create these diverse hiring initiatives, but nothing about how to include the people once they were there.

Phil Wagner

This is so good.

Marcelle Ciampi

So what I was hearing is tales of people being fired or quitting. And the worst was, and I don't know if this is true because I didn't know the person, but the worst was saying that a couple of their colleagues actually chose to leave the earth in their lives. And, of course, hearing that type of information, how can you not say something? How can you not try to make it better? And so I've risked my own reputation and people liking me over and over again. Because, like many of us that are neurodivergents, ADHD or autistic, and the like, I have found at least that being the best person we can be and giving back to the world in any way we can is more important than our own selves. And that's one of the reasons I love neurodivergent people so much.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. No, I so appreciate there's just so much to unpack there, even going back to like just the fundamental misconceptions. I think that's one of the biggest issues in the workplace is just often sort of lay managers who may not identify as having any of these neurodivergent identities. There's just a fundamental misunderstanding, and that impacts hiring, that impacts promotion, that impacts employee wellbeing. Even like you mentioned, the empathy thing, right? That's a common misconception that people with autism lack empathy, and that is not universally true. Right. Sometimes those folks may have extreme empathy, but there just might be, like, a communication disconnect. It may not be understood by others or recognized by others. Some really good research on that. So I think the more we can just normalize having conversations on neurodivergent perspectives in the world of work, it opens up space for everybody. So I just I appreciate the work that you do. I think it's profound work. I want to talk about some of your personal work if that's okay. One of the things I think that's so cool about you is listeners heard everything that you're doing. You're clearly doing a lot, and yet just sort of casually, on top of that, you're in a doctoral program too. So I'm wondering, can you share a little bit more about your personal pursuits and your professional pursuits? I know you're seeking a doctorate in organizational leadership. Do you have, like, a specific research interest or focus area? What do you want to do with that?

Marcelle Ciampi

Sure. So I'm attending Seattle University, and I am working towards I just finished my first year with an A average. Thank you very much.

Phil Wagner

Woo-hoo, that's good.

Marcelle Ciampi

I am pursuing a degree in educational and organizational learning and leadership. So what that means is I can use my knowledge to help organizations like I am doing on best ways to create systems and processes that help a company flourish and succeed. I'm learning a lot about global organizations, and something that's really interesting that I found is what they recommend that global leaders learn completely aligns with what I would recommend that any leader learns. Instead of learning, it talks about learning about different cultures and how their communication is different, their handshakes, their eye contact, their tone of voice. It's like, well, that transfers so well over into learning about the neurodivergent culture and how the neurodivergent culture differs so that you can eliminate those misperceptions and judgments, and you can have a more beneficial workplace and more productivity. And you asked about where my special focus might be. I go back and forth, but one thing that I've noticed is a huge gap hole is a lot of these leadership theories. No surprise, are the neuronormative who says that you have to be an extrovert to be a good leader. Extrovert. Extrovert men of middle class and upper class, right?

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Marcelle Ciampi

Who says that you have to make eye contact and be very good at communication skills to be an effective leader? I'm reading all of these qualities and traits of effective leaders, and I'm thinking, no, no, I've been a very effective leader, and I haven't had a lot of these qualities. And it's the same people quoting the same information, and it's this snake or this cat chasing its tail where it's not outside the box. It's not a novel and unique way of looking at leadership. There's so many different ways that we can lead in ways that demonstrate compassion and vulnerability and honesty, and openness. One of the reasons I'm an effective leader and effective role model is because I am who I am.

Phil Wagner

Yes.

Marcelle Ciampi

And there's not all these hidden agendas and these hidden things I'm trying to get out of you. And there's not this gossip, and there's not this backstabbing in it. And the priorities aren't all profit. The priorities are people.

Phil Wagner

Maybe that's not out of the box. Maybe it's just time to build a new box, right? That other box hasn't worked for us.

Marcelle Ciampi

Maybe it's time to run it over with, like a train, a bullet train.

Phil Wagner

Maybe, I don't know. But maybe it's the box that's the problem all along. Gosh, I love that.

Marcelle Ciampi

Yeah. So I've thought about looking at how a non-neuronormative leadership and interviewing and examining successful neurodivergent leaders and what types of attributes do they think led to their success. That's one approach. The other approach is it's been a challenge for me to be at a university, and it would be at any university because I am neurodivergent with multiple learning disabilities and navigating the disability services. Even just waiting to see a mental health therapist so I could get certified to get disability services took seven months. So looking at the accessibility for neurodivergence in online doctoral programs and how many people that are similar to me because I wanted to quit over and over again, when I say similar to me, I should say similar to us, similar minds that are not the neuronormative mind that are the non-neurotypical that are the neuro when I say neurodivergent or neurovariant mind aren't able to be leaders because the barriers of education and higher education, they're not able to finish their doctorate because they're expected to work in groups continually. They're expected to show their face on zoom meetings. They're expected to answer when they're called upon. And how much anxiety-producing are these doctoral programs, and how much are they shutting out the neurodivergent person from succeeding? And, like I said, this is not a reflection on the university I'm at. These are all different universities.

Phil Wagner

Of course.

Marcelle Ciampi

And how can we make it more conducive to a

Phil Wagner

Think of the box again.

Marcelle Ciampi

beneficial experience for an autistic person, ADHD person, someone I mean, given COVID the global health COVID-19, the global health crisis for the last two and a half years, how many of us are now neurodivergent because of post-traumatic stress because of generalized anxiety disorder, etc. When I called to get an appointment to see my nurse psychiatrist so I could get my reevaluation. There were 400 people on the waitlist behind me. So how many people out there are struggling with some type of neurodivergency and trying to make it in this world? And something as basic as education is a barrier.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Again, I think it's the box thing. I keep coming back to that, and I'm with you. I think higher ed can be a profound space where we can sense make, where we can do great things, but also, the system is not a perfect one. And so I love that you are working in that system while also critiquing and dismantling it in some way. So I've got one more question for you, and based on your own doctoral work, I think about mine. That was such a change period in my life, a time in my life where I just learned so much about life and scholarship and academia and about myself. And I studied under one of the brightest social support scholars out there. I love her to death. Dr. Adrianne Kunkel at the University of Kansas. Just a wonderful, wonderful person and a genius. And what I learned is the value of social support in all contexts. And so I'm wondering since mentorship and some of those themes really play out on this podcast. From your own personal and insights, in about 60 seconds or less, can you give us insights on things that you think might be helpful for leaders, managers, C-suite executives to consider as they try to sculpt employment spaces that are supportive and ripe for neurodivergent, neurodiverse employees to just to thrive. Not just survive, but thrive in that work environment. Any insights?

Marcelle Ciampi

Sure. Number one thing is the Disability Now autism motto nothing about us without us. Include the autistic voices.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Marcelle Ciampi

Include their input. If you're creating accommodations, ask for their input. Make it a team effort. Don't make it one person deciding for another person. Also, don't assume that somebody who's autistic needs help. They might be an expert like myself, who can actually offer you ideas and you help. Or they might be someone like my fiance, who has a master's in divinity and who is an autistic job coach. Look at other people's challenges and strengths in the workplace. Everybody is going through something. Everybody has strengths they can bring. And everybody has ways in which they need support and design and create programs that don't single out autistic people but bring everybody together in mutual support. So what can we do to help this ten-person team? Not this one person in this team have a universal inclusivity approach would be another thing. Also, tap into the ERG.

Phil Wagner

Yes.

Marcelle Ciampi

If you don't have an affinity group, an ERG, an employee resource group, think about how might someone in the company or organization create one and have an ongoing conversation with them. Bring in, guest speakers. And as we've mentioned over and over again, those stories, those narratives, and holding a space for somebody's dignity, for each person's dignity to share their stories. And I would say, as a leader, model, role model, just like you would as a parent. We learn through observation. We learn through watching people's behaviors. So practice what you preach. Be vulnerable. Admit your faults. Admit that you're struggling. Admit your anxiety. Admit that you're a human being. We need to bring humanness back into the workplace.

Phil Wagner

That's it.

Marcelle Ciampi

We're no longer cogs in the wheel or the machine, whatever that saying is. We're now coming to a new place in history where the workplace is a place where humans gather. It's going to be one of the last places with all this technology, going less and less to places that people meet and gather and join and connect, and we need to focus on making those connections real and meaningful, powerful, brave, and safe.

Phil Wagner

Oh, my gosh, I'm emotional over here. I'm like, yes, write all of this down. But it fits so well, and it all maps back to dignity, and I think that can never serve us wrong. Marcelle, I don't even want to end this conversation. It's so impactful. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for being you. Thank you. Thank you for giving of your time to us. It's been a great privilege chatting with you here.

Marcelle Ciampi

Thank you so much. I've done many of these, and I really appreciate how you navigated the conversation and contributed to the conversation and made me feel like you're holding a space for my dignity. All the best to you and to the people out there who are tuning in.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What it means to be a First Gen Low Income student
• Major events that have shaped Tye's life
• How Tye overcomes imposter syndrome
• Actions one can take to help and inspire FGLI students
• The importance of authenticity and empathy to FGLI students
• What Tye learned about D&I work while in the military
• Why Tye puts effort into giving back to his community
• Ways to develop an inclusive leadership philosophy

Transcript

Tye Askew

I can't sugarcoat it. That's the reality of how it is. Again, people look at you. Opinion, observation, decide they want to give you opportunity. I realized that I can't control how people think of me. I can't force people to get to know me, but what I can do is control myself.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. I'm particularly excited about today's guest, somebody who I know well. I've had the opportunity to work very deeply with somebody who I really think the world of. I'm joined today by Tyran Askew, who has been an MBA student with the College of William & Mary in the Raymond A. Mason School of Business for the past year. Tye was selected as a Major General James Wright Scholar, which is a prestigious lineage of scholars. He's joined our ranks. He's done some impressive work while here. Tye, it's an honor to have you on our podcast today. Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, and then clarify some of your story for us. You've been a little bit here, there, and everywhere. You have an impressive leadership trajectory. Tell us who you are.

Tye Askew

Yes, sir. Hi, sir. First and foremost, thank you for the opportunity. Dr. Phil has been a blessing to get to know you in a formal relationship with you as a person. Again my name is Tyran Askew. I'm a native of Virginia. I'm from south of Virginia. I grew up about an hour away from here. I grew up in a small neighborhood, Jericho, which is in Suffolk, Virginia. But throughout my first 18 years, I moved around a lot. We moved a lot. Whenever there was an opportunity, my mother packed up, and we went. So moved a lot. Bounced between Hampton, Newport News, back home to Suffolk, and just throughout the seven cities. After graduating high school, I made it out to Virginia State University. It's also where I enlisted in the US army and continue on four years. I've obtained my degree in Computer Science with a minor in mathematics, and I earned a commission as an army officer in a Signal Corps officer. And from there, it's been nonstop. So I commissioned in May of 2013, went to my basic officer course in June of 2013, completed that October. I became a platoon leader in Fort Hood, Texas. And in January, I was in Afghanistan. So it was a very fast transition. It was extremely rapid, but I'm thankful for all of the opportunities that I was blessed with so far.

Phil Wagner

Excellent. So, Tye, we're here to talk about something that maybe our listeners have never even heard of before, particularly in the realm of DEI work. November 8th is commonly known as First Gen Day, and at the College of William & Mary, we use the acronym FGLI. So first, generation, low-income, which I think maybe might give some people pause, but our students have spoken very clearly. That is the label, that's the acronym, that is the designation they sort of want to use as a defining framework for us to talk about what it means to be kind of a trailblazer, a first-generation and or low-income student who really sort of breaks past previous boundaries and sort of takes life by the horns. Tye, you've got an amazing story, and I've heard it many times. You have shared it with MBA students, with undergrads. You've shared it in front of the President of William & Mary. Do you mind sharing a little bit about your story as a First Gen student with us? You've been involved in our FGLI initiatives in the Mason School. Do you mind defining what FGLI is in sort of your own experience and giving our listeners a little bit of your story as a FGLI student?

Tye Askew

Yes, sir. So FLGI First generation, low income. And I tell you, my FGLI story, I don't want to say is no different it's authentic because it's mine, but it's no different because we have thousands, if not millions, of FGLI students in our country. And the thing about being a first-generation low-income student, I tell you, sometimes we suffer that imposter syndrome, right? So I get first tip.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Tye Askew

Teddy Roosevelt said he said people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I tell you, as a FGLI student, when I first graduated from high school, it wasn't until I got to my university I'm going to backtrack. Let's go back. So again. I'm from Suffolk, Virginia. Born and raised in Suffolk, Virginia. I'm from Jericho. And my FGLI story, again, is different. FGLI, you can come from poverty. You can be a farm hand, and if you have one bad harvest, then your family may suffer. You can be someone who just immigrated to the United States, and your parents are working hard to put you through college. There are so many different unique FGLI stories.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Tye Askew

That it is very broad, but I tell you what, I feel like we all want the same thing, and that first thing is care. Again, I'm from Suffolk, Virginia. I grew up in Jericho, in the neighborhood I grew up in. I come from poverty. It's labeled as a low-income drug-infested neighborhood. And again, it's about a hour away from Williamsburg, a hour away from William & Mary. And I remember vividly, as a kid, some of the things I've seen, some of the things that shaped me to who I am. One of my vivid memories is I was seven to eight years old. I think it was 98, 99. We're on the corner playing basketball with my friends on Capital Street, and we see this man walking down the road, and he's covered in blood, and then he just drops in front of us, and he had got robbed coming through, coming through my neighborhood, he got robbed. And just being so young and watching that, it was kind of traumatic. And I still remember to this day because to this day, that taught me that life is very short. So sometimes I'll be out having fun, like, I have a blast, and it just crosses my mind that, man, one day I'm not going to be here anymore. Because I see we all went down one day. But it's also motivational because I know while I'm here, I want to make an impact as much as possible, right? So again, full circle being that first-generation low-income, I know that the neighborhood I come from it's not like where most people come from. And when you come to a university such as William & Mary, founded in 1693, the second oldest university behind Harvard, some will argue we are the first. It's kind of when you see these brick buildings, this historic, these landmarks. Sometimes you feel like I don't belong here, right? That impostor syndrome is real. And I tell you, even as an army officer with high confidence, I would not be telling the truth if I say it never crossed my mind, like, wow, I can't believe I'm here, right? So when it comes to being a FGLI student, a lot of times, you just want that care and support because growing up in my neighborhood, and where I come from, my high school career wasn't the best. I'll be completely honest with you. I'm from Virginia again. So I took the SOL Standard of Learning Test, and my cumulative GPA when I got accepted to college was a 1.9 GPA. The difference is that I had 600 in my English SOL, and I also had a perfect geometry SOL. So I was not a dump kid. It was just my environment. I prioritized different, like I prioritize the next day, opposed to, if I study hard right now, then I can possibly do this. It wasn't until something happened to me that had me in a hospital like I had to change. So, long story short, my aunt was like, you should apply for college, right? I always was going to go to the military, but she said you should take a step further to college. You have perfect SOLs. You have it in you. Just go. So me going to Virginia State University, founded March 6, 1882, Petersburg, Virginia. Historical Black College in Petersburg. That's where I went to. And I tell you, it was a blessing, right? Because as I said, I had a 1.9 GPA when I got accepted. But my first semester, with 21 credit hours, I pulled a 4.0. I've never seen it like, my transcript was A, A, A.

Phil Wagner

Wow.

Tye Askew

And the thing is, I tell you, is that for the first time, I was surrounded by a bunch of people who look like me, who inspired me, and motivated me to go the right way. You know, and again in my neighborhood, I take pride in being from Jericho, and I had a lot of people older than me teach me how to do things, to make it to the next day, et cetera, et cetera. Jericho taught me how to survive, but when I got to college, they taught me how to live. So being at Virginia State University, having people that believe in you, again, that impostor syndrome here, these brick buildings, I see doctors, I see people who just something I was unfamiliar with. But I was sat down early and said I was told that these next four years will change your life if you want it to. This is going to be a transformational process. You have to believe in it, and you have to go along. But I tell you, it was hard, right because again, when you're a FGLI student, and I don't want to say this for all I don't want to speak for all of us, but when you're away at college that first year, those first two or three years, this stuff is still going on at home. And it's over time that you learn how to get over things, or something happens back home, and you push forward like, sadly, here I am at William & Mary, 31 years old now, and since I've been here, I've had people that I grew up with murdered, people locked up. I'm getting phone calls, and then I have to make a presentation less than an hour later. But, you know, this is not 18 19 year old me. I would have handled it a lot differently. But that foundation helping me understand and just know I had a support system was key for me. So I say the first thing is care. FGLI students need care. Again, when I say care, knowing that you care about them, it goes a long way. Authenticity.

Phil Wagner

No, no, go ahead. I kind of wanted to build on that thing of care and ask you, we can come back to authenticity, perhaps, because I also want to come back to I want to come back to something else you said too, but to the point of care. As somebody who's been there, what actions as a FGLI student particularly, of course, you're so much more than that, Tye. We take an intersectional perspective. I know there's so many different identity elements, but maybe more specifically, in line with FGLI, what were those actions that the people that poured into you that helped develop you in ways that were meaningful to you? What were those actions that really resonated, that did something for you, that helped turn that imposter syndrome around for you? Can you think of specific things that really helped that turnaround?

Tye Askew

The biggest specific things in Virginia State University was people sitting down with me and actually sharing some of their story with me. Again, not knowing that you're not the only one. So when you see somebody who've been through what you've been through, be able to relate to you and see where they got to, it's amazing, right? And I fast forward here at William & Mary. Dr. Dawn Edmiston. She's a FGLI student. She's first generation.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, she's a wonderful person too.

Tye Askew

Just talking to Dr. Edmiston. She didn't come from a privileged background where everything was handed to her. Her family worked as well, and she had to build her way up. Seeing leaders, like, again, I'm military, so chain of command is key. So when you see Dean Pulley, the dean of the business school, in our FGLI meetings, in our EIB meetings, participating in all these events, you see that leadership from the top supports the program. Then you know that just at the top man supported. You see that as a student. No, they really care about this. No, this isn't a check-to-block initiative. When you see the dean, you see Dr. Carlane, you see yourself. We see all of our professors actively participating. You see Dr. Chong's supporting programs. And when you see the entire staff as buy-in, your peers have buy-in. It makes you feel a lot more comfortable because people are willing to actually learn about you. They're not stereotyping you, per se. Because I was taught a long time ago that people look at you, they make an observation. From there, they formulate an opinion, and they decide if they want to give you an opportunity or not. And that's really how I think about a lot of things. But here, people see me. I'm perceived how I'm perceived. A lot of times, people really want to learn more. They really want to know about you. They really want to see you go and do great things and go forward. It's just a wonderful feeling when you look around. You feel that support all over. So that's pretty much it.

Phil Wagner

I love it. Sharing the stories thing, I think that's such a pivotal theme sort of writ large in DEI work. You can't be what you can't see. And so when you wear that story on your sleeve, our own Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, Kim Smith, as a FGLI student, has been so open about her experience and how that drives her understanding of student success. And so I'm very thankful that you've been willing to share your stories here, but I want to give you a chance to go back because you were talking about authenticity, which is also just another pivotal theme. You want to go back to that? I didn't mean to interrupt you, but this was a helpful rabbit trail.

Tye Askew

Yes, sir. Authenticity piece. Dr. Phil, I look at you. I think the world of you. You're one of my

Phil Wagner

Ditto, man, ditto.

Tye Askew

top professors, and again, it's because you're authentic. You're a very authentic person. And I can think of a few instances, but I'm going to say it again. You're a very authentic person. So when people know that the person they're talking to is not putting up front or they're not, again, checking that block, but they truly care, that means a lot. And I tell you, as FGLI coming from our backgrounds, a lot of us, nonverbal communication is key, and over time, we learn how to read people and recognize people for who they are. So you kind of understand when somebody's in the military, we call it faking the fault when somebody's just doing what they have to do to, I guess, the Roni Rule, like the NFL, say, just looking at you, having a conversation with you say they know it. It's a lot different when people really want to know how can we help. And I'll tell you again. I keep saying I can say nothing but great things about William & Mary, especially the Raymond A. Mason School of Business, because I've seen it. I've witnessed the different programs going on to make everyone feel comfortable, like the entire bigger than FGLI, but the entire population is welcome no matter who you are, and that's a lot. So authenticity from the top. Empathy that's another one.

Phil Wagner

For sure.

Tye Askew

I believe empathy is key because, you know, with some of the things we go through as FGLI students and me personally, like I said, I had a childhood friend. I know he lost his life a couple of months ago. And in the neighborhood neighborhood, my dad and my uncle live, so nobody knew what was going on. So I called out to my brother-in-law, who lives there. He was like, no, it wasn't your dad. It was somebody else. He was like. I tried my best to help him. He was like he just bled out. I tried to just having a conversation with someone you love, like, man. We got to get you out the neighborhood and then go into class. And so if I'm a little down that day, I'm not trying to push my hurt off on everyone else and tell them that they should be compassionate for me, but maybe they didn't know, okay, something's going on. All right. We'll work with this student and help them out and keep going.

Phil Wagner

And I think it's a good reminder to leaders, right? So keep in mind you've got to take an empathy-oriented approach to your employees who are coming in every single day. You don't have the luxury of clocking in nine to five and forgetting about systemic racism or the violence that you've observed or the family issues that you carry in. So what I love about two things that you said is, yes, lead with empathy. But when we also lead with storytelling, it makes that empathy an individualized approach. It's not a blanket. It's not a giant bandaid, but it's very specific. You got to read the room. You got to know your employees. You got to develop those relationships. And I think that that's key. Tye, can I go back to the thing about imposter syndrome, because you said that the way you perceive yourself drives how we perceive others. I gotta be honest with you. I mean, you spoke flattery to me. Let me just return it to you. You are a top-notch student, like bar none. There's no caveat. You're a rock star in every way. Never, ever, ever would I have ever perceived you to be someone who feels a sense of imposter syndrome. You are confident. You are intelligent. You contribute relentlessly. I mean, you have an insight for everything in class. You're a model student. So talk to me a little bit about that imposter syndrome and either how you've overcome it or strategies that you've sort of implemented. Because again, I would have never, ever guessed you were anything less than 150% confident, never arrogant. Let me be clear here. You're very, very people-oriented, but, like, you're a confident leader. It's so clear. So how do you grapple with imposter syndrome? And how do you sort of perform in a way that rewrites that in your own head?

Tye Askew

Again, being your authentic self that's something that you taught me. Over the years, I've been my authentic self for a while now, but actually understanding that and living it more to being true to who I am and understanding. Right. So again, this is not anything directed towards William & Mary. Again, I love the school like. This is my second home, right? After Virginia State, this is my second home. But, you know, Monday through Thursday, I may come in with a suit dressed to the tee, tie clip, two-piece suit, nice oxfords. And then, on Fridays when we relax, I might come in with a polo shirt, pair of jeans, and pair of Jordans. And I tell you, Monday to Thursday people they wave are nice and hi. Friday, you see people move out the way a little bit more. I can't sugarcoat it. That's the reality of how it is. Again, people look at you opinion, observation, decide. They want to give you opportunity. I realized that I can't control how people think of me. I can't force people to get to know me, but what I can do is control myself, control who I am. And that the people who do know me. I want to make a good impression. Like, I want them to really get to know who I am. Because one thing we talk in the military is your reputation supersedes you. People see you, but once they hear about you and a lot of people start saying the same thing, and you know in your heart that you're doing everything to be righteous. I don't want to get controversial and start talking religion, but I believe in God. It could be Allah. It could be whoever your religion is. It could be your God. But I'm a firm believer that when God speaks a blessing, he's speaking on relationships. And I think that the relationships that I formed with people and the relationships that I continue to build have carried me a long way. I can lose everything I have. I can go dead broke. But I know if I call Dr. Phil once I lose it all, he's still going to be there for me to help pick me up.

Phil Wagner

I'll spot you. I got you covered.

Tye Askew

Being authentic to yourself, understanding who you are, and taking pride in who you are that's what really helped me get over the imposter syndrome. Like I said, even here at William & Mary, sometimes it's like, okay, keep on going. Go to class, get it done, and we're going to keep pushing forward and then giving back to others. That's another thing. But then we get into that a little later.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and I hear two things there. Right. So from a DEI practitioner lens, there is an imperative for us to sort of work in a professional development model that helps those who carry an imposter syndrome to help cultivate a sense that this is indeed just imposter syndrome, and it can be overwritten, but also at the same time, it's not a resiliency. I'm not trying to teach you how to be resilient. I need to change that Friday culture that you talk about as a DEI practitioner. That's on me. That, yes, support you. Help you realize you can overwrite those feelings of imposter syndrome but recognize there are cultural issues in place that are sort of driving those feelings too. And so I've got two levels of work here, and I can't lose sight that I got to really change that culture. So that can help sort of mitigate some of those feelings of imposter syndrome, too. This is such great insight. Let's pivot a little bit. So you were selected for a very prestigious MGJW fellowship here. Again, you're part of a long lineage of scholars who have gotten that fellowship, and it's in part because of your extensive leadership experience in the Army. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you've learned about DEI while serving in uniform?

Tye Askew

Yes, sir. So my grandfather, he always told me, he said, Tyran go to the service. Service is going to change your life. And then Dee, another grandfather, he told me join the military to change your life. But the thing about Dee, which I love about Dee Dee still living down at Hampton University, right off of Aberdeen Road. I believe he's 89, and he went to the Korean War. 1951 I think he came home 1953. He told me when he came back. I have it on video. If you ever want to see it, I'll share it with you that he went to the Richmond bus station on his way home in uniform. Just came home from Korea. He said I would like a Pabst blue ribbon beer, a hot dog with nothing but mustard and onions. They told him in uniform, get out, go around back. We don't serve negros.

Phil Wagner

Oh, my goodness.

Tye Askew

But even then, he said, join the service because he knew, he always said, no matter what, like the service was different from traditional society. And I don't want to create separation, but I firmly believe that top 1% of the nations served in the military. That's what we like to say. We take pride in that. And since being in the military, when I enlisted in 2010, I remember my old First Sergeant saying, I don't see color, all I see is green. But I'll tell you, in these twelve years, over time, it's evolved. Because I tell you, as a company commander, I see color. I make sure that people know I see color. Right. Because I want you for who you are. Right. Because the idea, I don't see you as a person. I see you as a capability.

Phil Wagner

I love that it's such an important framing, Tye, as you know, in the DEI space. So important to see difference, to celebrate difference, to acknowledge difference. It helps us be more precise in our approach. So, yeah, I love that framing.

Tye Askew

And when we see color, we embrace each other, the different heritages. It's beauty in that, right?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Tye Askew

I read somewhere it's like a pot of gumbo. We take all these different ingredients, you mix it together, you come with something wonderful. So as a company commander, my XO was Italian. My lt was Irish. His wife was a down-south sister from South Carolina. My platoon Sergeant, just one of them Hispanic. I say all this to say our potlucks were amazing. We used to do stuff outside of work. Because in my profession, I can't think of many professions that they take anyone. If you say you want to serve, we put you together, and you've learned about each other, and it gets personal. Right. I can't think of many professions that you can possibly deploy thousands of miles away from home and never return. So, yeah, it's definitely professional. It's also personal. So we take the time to get to learn each other. We figure out who's who, who's good at what. And again, those potlucks it may seem like a simple meal, but no. Hey, what's that recipe? My grandmother taught me that. I never had lumpia before. This lumpia is amazing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Tye Askew

My XO, hey, sir, I made this marinara sauce myself. And then XO, man, how did you make this? Learning about each other's cultures and the way we do things. And again, when people see that we care about each other's background, we acknowledge the differences, but we all understand that we do have a common purpose to support, defend the Constitution of the United States. You can't beat it, and just that DEIBA space in the military, that's exactly who we are. But I always add an extra letter. I added A we got the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, but also acceptance. We want people to know that you're accepted for who you are. We praise that. We acknowledge all the differences because, again, our profession is so unique in what we do. And I'll never forget I was a company commander down the Third Infantry Division Fort Stewart when the George Floyd situation happened. And I had to get ahead of it early because when it happened. Calling it how it is, I had my white soldiers walking around with their heads down, and some of XOs were a little irritated. The entire company is just, whoa, what's going on here? So for the company back, we call it U shape we had a U-shaped formation. Take off your caps. Let's talk. And we just had to let the soldiers know what just happened is not a reflection of America. We're not going to be divisive. It's not going to create polarization. That's not a reflection of America. Individuals made a decision that wasn't the best decision, right? But as individuals, the idea of the racism and the policies, etc. Those are ideas. That's something that's abstract. You people, you're concrete. You can choose to believe what you want to believe. But if you believe ideologies like that, then you fall into that category. But I know my soldiers, most soldiers, we all care about each other, so we squash it. We understand each other, we accept each other, and we keep it moving. So, I mean, DEIBA is it's the military.

Phil Wagner

You know, what I love about you army guys is I would think, I would think it would be my supposition that y'all would just throw the soft skills right out the window, right? No, I want all the technical stuff. You all legitimize what I do in the classroom quicker than anybody else because you get it right. It is all about relationships. Relationships establish communication context. It is context that drives the strategy we use to achieve results in communication. So, no, I appreciate just that entire framing. I think it's particularly true in the DEIBA space. I love how the acronym continues to grow, and I'm here for it. Language is messy. Language grows. We pivot with it. I love thanks for sharpening us. So let's go back to giving back to the community. I want to ask you about that because you do, and you give so much back. You have given so much at William & Mary. Speak to some of your community service work that you do, the programs that you've developed, and you've done some great mentorship stuff. What drives your interest in pouring into young folks, particularly, you do a lot with middle schoolers giving back. Like, what drives those interests? Why do you do what you do?

Tye Askew

To be completely honest, I do it because I wish somebody would have done it for me, and I could sit back and complain about what wasn't done, or I can make a difference about what was done. And my Aunt Geneva, Sally Geneva Hobbs. She's a Virginia State graduate as well. She was my second mom. Before cancer took her overtook control of her body, she had the entire family at her house. Like anybody in the neighborhood, you knew the routine. You were coming into Aunt Neva house, sitting at the kitchen table if it's breakfast time. You get yourself some corn pops, Apple Jacks. If it's lunchtime, you get a bologna and cheese sandwich with a bag of chips. But you're going to do basic math. You're going to do your basic reading comprehension, et cetera. She laid that foundation of education. So even though, like I said, we see drug race, or shot house race, or fight and all that, she would take us away from those environments and give us a book. So she had me reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. So with the world going on outside, I'm inside of the house, learning how he tricked one of his friends to paint a fence with, like, firecrackers or something along those lines, and just learning the essentials of Mark Twain, reading Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingles Wilders, et cetera, et cetera, and that really helped me as a kid stay out of trouble and grow more. And it's kids all around the nation, across the world, who want that same opportunity. And being in Afghanistan in 2014, I never forget I saw a young kid, like eight or nine years old, in the middle of the day selling stuff with his family. I'm 22 years old, not knowing much, and I talk to my platoon sergeant. Hey, Serg, why that kid, not school? He said it's ain't America. He's doing what he can to feed his family. I'm like, this kid is eight years old. Then I go back home, and I got family members dropping out of school, right? So just seeing things like that, we got to fix it because I think a big misconception is that our way of life is guaranteed, that our democracy is going to stand. No, our democracy is a bunch of ideas, but it takes educated, strong people who believe in the country and believe in America. Americans, not this type of America who, believe in Americans. We depend on each other, right? So it ended up with a nonprofit that started off with, again, my Aunt Neva Sally Scholars. And I would award scholarships to young men and women going to Virginia State University. Since then, it's expanded, right? So we do. Sally scholars. That's the key initiative. And then we have, like, Carl's Crew, who's named after my grandfather. We go to the local middle school or any local school. Since I've been here at William & Mary, I've tutored the entire year, right? I may have missed a couple of sessions, take my son to soccer practice, but when I'm here. I'm talking to these kids because, in addition to tutoring, I'm talking to them about life. Let them know the decisions you make early will impact the rest of your life. Let them know the importance of education, and you ever read this book and just sparking those conversations in my nonprofit again, TLA Seeds? The idea is to plant a seed. General McChrystal wrote a book, Team of Teams, and in his book, he talks of his leadership style of a gardener. Gardener, they plant seeds, they cultivate the soil, they water it, they remove any weeds, they make sure it grows, and at some point, it becomes a fruit-bearing tree which drops more seeds. So my logic, you know, I go out, and I can reach people. They reach more. So when I was in college, I went back to my high school. I got four people to come to Virginia State. They're now army officers. If they go back and get four more, you have 16. So again, I just want to make an impact. The local middle school tutoring, back-to-school drives, Sally Scholars, and I just want to keep expanding. I just want to help people because, again, we're here such a finite amount of time. It's not forever. I just want to make a lasting impact. I have a son now. I'm expecting another one in January. I want to make sure that the world they inherit is worth inheriting. I can sit back and complain from the sidelines, or I can do something about it.

Phil Wagner

Gosh, you're so inspirational. So let me ask you, given your story, given all that you've been through, I don't think it would be a particularly selfish endeavor to say, I'm going to inspire others just by sort of focusing on me. I'm going to develop my own story. Let me be sort of a visible inspiration. You don't do that. I mean, you are such an inclusion-oriented leader. You are constantly giving back. Tell me a little bit about where you get that concept of inclusive leadership, particularly as one that pours back out into others. And then, if you can, can you give our listeners sort of tips or tricks or recommendations for how they can grow and develop in their own DEI leadership journey, developing their own inclusive leadership philosophy?

Tye Askew

Earlier, I don't want to recant my statement, but earlier I said I wish people would have done it for me. And I'll tell you, my community, Jericho, they did a lot for me in the idea of African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child. My neighborhood raised me. And I remember one time I was throwing rocks at a train, and Miss Alice stayed on the corner. She called my mom, came, and popped me on my way home out in the rain. Saw me, asked me why I was crying. I told her why she popped me. By the time I get home, my mom's on the porch with a belt waiting for me, like, why are you going to the train? So this idea of reinforcing the concept, but in order for them to do that, they didn't care. They saw somebody in need. They saw somebody who needed guidance, and they provided it to them. So if you want to help out in the DEIB space, check your biases at the door. If you see someone who you think you can connect with, try to connect with that young person. But again, if you are the FGLI or minority if you seek that mentorship or guidance, you have to go out and ask for it as well. You can't always expect people to come to you, and you can't always expect that it's full duplex communication. You have to send and receive. So it's a partnership, right? The three ships I was taught, friendships, relationships, and partnerships, you maintain those three, keep them afloat. And that's the biggest thing is recognizing when there is someone who needs help, and it's simply helping them and doing it without bias.

Phil Wagner

That's good. All right, so final question for November 8, First Gen Day, nationally, particularly, but also across the globe, I'm wondering, can you leave us with some final words to our FGLI listeners? Maybe students or people who are graduated? What words of inspiration can you give those folks on knowing your worth, overriding that imposter syndrome, and not just surviving but thriving in life and in the world of work?

Tye Askew

So the first two I know plagiarism give this out to Nelson Mandela. A Long Walk to Freedom one of the best reads of books I've ever read. In that book, he said it was not the lack of ability that limited my people. It was a lack of opportunity. Mainly for FGLI, minority, no matter who you are, if you find your ways in college, specifically William & Mary, I tell you, you have the opportunity to change your life. And by getting here, it shows that you have the ability. You just have to believe in yourself and actually do it. And Nelson Mandela also said that education is the most powerful weapon in which you can use to change the world. I believe that. My uncle and I, we have conversations all the time, and he tells me there's three things that prevent us from growing as people, as a nation. He says it's poverty, ignorance, and racism. Right? So poverty, poorness a lot of crimes are committed cause people don't have money. Sadly, people do whatever they think is necessary to get out of poverty. It may not be the right decision. And then ignorance. People have certain perceptions of people when they see the world a certain way because they're too ignorant to really understand or attempt to understand exactly the full story, right? And then the whole racism piece, I think we understand that, right? When I say racism, most people immediately think white against black. No. When I say racism, I mean holistically. You see black lives matter. You see the, stop Asian hate. I've seen white people get discriminated against. What you're doing over here is such and such. All the ignorant racist has to stop. Because I tell you, we all get cut. We are going to bleed red, right? There are differences in the culture. There are differences in religious. But at the end, we all people. If you ask me Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, you start them off at the basic level. I think it's physiological. We all want the same thing. We work our way up to self-actualization to realize who we are, so just help each other. Again, God said, love others as I have loved you. We follow that premise. We follow that concept of treating people the way you want to be treated. That golden rule that our moms taught us. You will be fine. And lastly, this is my perspective. Coming from business school, I think life is like the stock market, right? You see something that you believe in, you say, okay, I'm going to get this new cryptocurrency, Colonial Williamsburg coin or Apple? Where are you going to put your money? Chances are you going to choose Apple because Apple has a good brand. People believe in it. It has value. It's the same way. Again when people look at you, they make an observation, they form an opinion, decide they're going to give you opportunity. So life is like the stock market. You should bet on yourself. But by betting on yourself, make sure that you're something worth investing in because people will put time into you, which is money. Time is money, right? People will put other resources into you with the hopes that you're going to grow and they're going to get a ROI. And that ROI is not monetary. It's just the satisfaction of, say, man, look at this young man, young woman. I'm glad I could help him or her. This person is going to be a productive American, one step closer to securing our democracy for what it is. So I hope that helps.

Phil Wagner

It does. Again, you're an inspiration, and I appreciate all that you bring. It's hard to be first, Tye, and you're first in so many ways. It's so clear to me you'll never be last. I mean, I fully believe in the principle. You reap what you sew. You have sewn so many valuable insights in our community here at William & Mary to our community globally. And so I look forward to watching you thrive, to you reaping the benefits of being such a strong, inclusive leader. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Thanks for sharing your insights with us, Tye. It's a privilege to talk to you always, but I'm really particularly excited to have you here. So thanks for joining us.

Tye Askew

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to just get up here and speak. I mean, your platform is an amazing platform that represents the entire William & Mary, and I think you're a great person. So by you just giving me the invitation, that meant a lot, and I pray I upheld and represented William & Mary well. Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Thank you. Thank you, my friend.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• How living in Europe led Sarah to the world of conflict resolution work
• What does the Era of Reckoning mean for business
• How the French National Railway has come to reckon with its association with the Holocaust
• How corporations should respond when faced with a social, moral reckoning
• How the Baltimore Sun is a leading example of how to put forth a corporate public apology
• Who should take responsibility for apologizing for the skeletons in a corporation's closet
• The importance of an independent historian for a brand
• What is the act of atonement for a corporation once they've acknowledged past wrongdoings

Transcript

Sarah Federman

And even if your company isn't dealing with these particular reckoning issues, I'm telling you, there is something.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to our first-ever live in-person recording. That's right, today, even though it might sound the same on your end, I have the luxury of sitting across the table from a real, live human. And it's not just any live human. It's a live human that I have come to admire a great deal. I'm sitting here with Dr. Sarah Federman. She's an author, educator, and conflict resolution practitioner. She's currently a faculty member at the Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. And I met Sarah just like I imagine you're meeting her today. I was driving to DC, listening to a podcast, as I always do, and as episode after episode played, I remember just sitting up really straight in my car when her episode came on. Sarah studies and explores the concept of reckoning. And in no uncertain terms, she produces some of the coolest, most interesting, most engaging research I've read to date. She's been here on our campus, speaking to our students. And so it's a true delight to be able to sit across the table from a real, live human, this live human, and record an episode with her today. So, Sarah, thanks for being here.

Sarah Federman

Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about who you are, what you do, what you study?

Sarah Federman

Great. Well, thank you for this invitation. I came to this work may be in a surprising direction. I actually worked in business first. Ten years of running all around doing advertising in New York and then throughout the United States. And then they sent me to Canada, and then they sent me to Europe, and then I started doing some business trips in Asia and the Middle East and so on. So I was kind of on this wild ride and the excitement of business because you just get to see so much and then to make things happen at such a rapid pace. And I was enjoying that. And then, when I was sent to Europe and living in Europe, I started to see the impact of the world wars in a way that I never had known. We'd read about it, of course, in school, seen all the movies, but there was something about standing in the trenches and thinking that, like, every French family lost a son in this trench, and German families too. Right? And then there was just a few memorials that just took my breath away, and I thought, we just can't do this again. This is craziness. And it wasn't that long ago. I don't know why the World Wars felt so long ago when I was younger than when I was older, but as they grew closer, I felt this urgency that I wanted to be a part of somehow working towards another pathway forward, having no idea if I could have any impact. But it just felt like something I wanted to do. So little by little, I moved in this direction. But how great that I had that business experience because now I feel didn't historically pay a lot of attention to business, and now businesses matter so much, and they have historically, but they weren't acknowledged in that way. So I'm just at this really exciting point of being able to bring together these two passions. And so I talk about it as like integrating business savvy with peace-building wisdom.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, the intersections, I think, are so pronounced, particularly right here, right now, even on our own campus, as we've talked about over the last few days. In this episode today, what I'm hoping we can focus on is a concept that you speak to regularly, but I think we might have some difficulty putting our finger on it. You came here to William & Mary to speak on doing business in an era of reckoning, and it's so profound, but can you unpack that term? What do you mean by this era of reckoning? And what does this era mean for business and the organizational enterprise?

Sarah Federman

So there are times when certain conversations are easier to have than others. So, for example, during the Cold War, there was not a lot of conversation about atonement for the Holocaust in World War Two. That decision to split up the USSR and Western Europe and kind of look the other way with what USSR was doing. There was a real fear of that power and that nuclear power. So there was not question of pushing Germany or pushing Switzerland to atone or France even. But when that wall fell, then the conversation opened. So that became an era of reckoning for Holocaust, and so many people don't know that because it seems like that the Holocaust survivors always had acknowledgment. But no, no, they sat in that silence for 50 years, many of them as well. But then there was kind of an era of reckoning for the Holocaust. Now we're seeing, for a number of reasons, Black Lives Matter has moved forward, and then the repeated police murders has culminating in George Floyd has pushed this other era of reckoning. But I want to be clear that people are doing this work all in the in-between times that new conversations open and that George Floyd, for whatever reason, when I first saw that image too, of him choking, it just hit something like what's happening in Iran right now. And the woman journalist, the woman who was killed, beaten up for not wearing her hijab appropriately. And then conversations erupt. So we are in an era of reckoning in the United States, but it has exploded from its iterative. So it's the Holocaust, but now it's slavery, but also colonialism, and it's transnational. So these movements hop around the world, and these companies are now transnational. So that's where we are increasingly.

Phil Wagner

And I really love this framing because you give us a vehicle for sense-making that I think we just we haven't been able to identify. We talk a lot about D&I work not being so reactionary, right? Not being reactive but being proactive. But those inflection points, those George Floyd moments, those catalysts, are really powerful conversation openers. And so that reckoning is important. It's not always because something's been done incorrectly or we're just not addressing it until we have to. There's something about those moments, those points in time, that I think lead us to those conversations in a different way. Can you put some examples of companies in the public domain who have had to reckon with past? Of course, I think like BP and Enron. But, I mean, there's so many here.

Sarah Federman

Right, almost so many, in some ways, makes it typical because they get a lot of attention for a week, and then we're on to the next one. So when we were looking at companies pulling out of Russia during Putin's invade of Ukraine, there was a lot of attention in the beginning to those graphs, if you remember. Many of you maybe watch them. There's a professor in Yale who's really tracking with students, and then it's like, where did that go? Right? But some companies are pulled in longer. And the one that pulled my attention initially was the French National Railways. Yeah. Which is the SNCF. If anyone has been to France, you've been on that railway, and it's not a single them out as a worse perpetrator than anybody else in World War II. But when France was occupied, the Germans requisitioned the railways. This railway company had played many roles in the war, and one of them was transporting deportees, and that also spent 50 years. Kind of that story was suppressed, sort of, during that USSR nuclear arms race. But then it came out, and the company found itself repeatedly pulled into the public debate. And, you know, they're kind of like, wait a minute, why us? Why French trains? How did we get why us again and again? And there are interesting things for companies, and this is something for those who are brand managers may want to pay attention to, who are interested in brand management. The trains represent the Holocaust more than any other symbol. They are a moving what Pierre Nora calls a Les Lieux de Mémoire, a moving site of memory. And the gas chambers are symbolic, but nobody survived. Those people survived the trains. They can talk about it. Nobody. Holocaust couldn't have happened without trains. It represents industrialization and how industrialization contributed to the killing. Okay, so the way, maybe machetes represent the Rwanda if your company represents the thing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sarah Federman

You're going to stay in the limelight more, which also for advocates. Also, pay attention if you're focusing on one. Who are you missing? Like, the French police never had a reckoning. But why? Well, the French railway had more reckoning because the US had leverage because they were pitching for contracts in the United States. The French police, where are you going to get at them? Right, so that was one that I've studied, and it really lasted until 2016, blew up in the late in the 90s, really, I mean, at the end of the Cold War, and then has lasted until 2016.

Phil Wagner

And you speak of this then sort of corporate moral responsibility. Right. Like, that you now have to acknowledge. What are the steps that you would recommend you sort of put in place to acknowledge that past wrongdoing, to have that reckoning? Can you speak to how maybe the SNCF?

Sarah Federman

Yeah, so SNCF actually, I think, ended up being a good model for it, but not because they were maybe so interested in doing this work, but they just couldn't quite get rid of it. So they had to do everything. And what they didn't do is they didn't pay survivors right away, which ended up meaning they had to try everything else. So there's a field called transitional justice, which is post-conflict studies, but there's a number of mechanisms that happen after a war, and the SNCF engaged them. The first one is transparency. You need to know your own history. The SNCF executives were shocked at the time, too, because they didn't know they were also buying into the story of the singular story of heroism. So do an independent study. If you suspect any skeletons, do the research. I would actually do the research anyway. If you're older than 50 years old, there's been a moral shift. So definitely, you want to do that research. You do want to make it available. Now, I know that's complicated, and the legal departments are going to scream no because it's true that some of the materials the SNCF found were used against them in lawsuits. But the courts predominantly, they will expunge all corporations. They're not holding corporations accountable for this in the United States. You can't use the alien tort statute. The Supreme Court's not leaning in that direction these days. So right now, okay, it's not going to be probably legal, but it can lead to a lot of bad press and a lot of boycotting of the product. So you want to be transparent, you want to share that history, you want to update your timelines. If you've been managing a heritage brand and really burying that history, making a public statement, I recommend taking a look at what Lloyds of London has done. Their apology. They write like a full apology on their website. The other apology I love is the Baltimore Sun has come out with one and all the ways that the newspaper participated not only in slavery but Jim Crow and Redlining. And it is the coolest apology I've read to date. And they are a company, but they really want to repair their relationship with the community because here they are, they are The Baltimore Sun and doing that work. So I thought there are some great examples out there. Then you want to make a public statement about how you feel about this past the way the Baltimore Sun did, to show that we are not that company. Right. That you want a shift. There's been a shift. You acknowledge it was a different time. It was horrible. That's not who you are. This is like when you make any good apology. And what you're going to do now to address that. Now this will depend on exactly what the complicity was. The affected communities. If you can go local, that's great. And work with affected communities. Some have living survivors. Some don't. I mean, Agent Orange, all the chemical companies that were involved in that, that lawsuit has been going on for a long time about the chemical companies involved in that. And those survivors are dying, which, you know, sometimes these suits, I sometimes feel like they're waiting for these people to die.

Phil Wagner

Yeah just waiting.

Sarah Federman

Yeah. So then, really reforming the corporate ethos, you want to make sure that the company doesn't end up doing this again in other ways and using this reckoning as an opportunity and connected to the DEI work. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. You have to address that past in the conversation about who you are today.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and that's exactly what we're trying to do on our campus, too. We walked across campus together over the past few days to Hearth memorial to be enslaved. Now, if you're not on our campus, if you come to William & Mary's beautiful campus here in Colonial Williamsburg, you'll see this beautiful, just magnificent architectural wonder that is a memorial to those who were enslaved on our campus as a consequence of our own actions. And it's a painful piece but a beautiful piece at the same time. And it's designed to be a conversation starter, not a conversation stop.

Sarah Federman

Yeah, it's a beautiful it's a really moving memorial. And unlike, it's very welcoming, and it really invites you into the conversation. Some memorials are just so gruesome that you just don't want to be near the conversation. I'm sure every student on campus has seen it. But if those who are listening from abroad, when you come to graduate, I do want come visit. Yeah.

Phil Wagner

Let's go back to the who question here. So who should be responsible? Who should acknowledge past, right? Clearly, these are not leaders who were in leadership or even alive when those wrongdoings happen. So it's 2022. It's 2023, and you find skeletons in your organization's closet. Do you try to shove them aside? Do you say, well, this had nothing to do with me? How does that moral responsibility or accountability become individualized?

Sarah Federman

Yeah. And that initial reaction of, like, that wasn't me is a healthy reaction because it wasn't you. That's actually correct. But I talk about it thinking about when a person becomes a president or a prime minister or a monarch. They inherit the entire history of that country. So they have to take responsibility. President Biden has to take responsibility. He has an opportunity to apologize for slavery. Should he rush to Obama, almost apologize for the dropping of the atomic bomb? You inherit these histories. Now, business leaders aren't as accustomed to that. They're more accustomed to inherited business problems, failed product lines, a team that might be embezzling money, a bad attitude, a bad culture. I don't know all outdated systems used to that. And they don't say, well, this isn't for me to handle because I didn't pick this software. You just accept that shit. It's just what I inherited. So to think of it as an opportunity of, yes, you didn't do it. I do encourage advocates to not treat the CEOs like they did it if they didn't do it, but to partner with them and employees, to see it as an opportunity to move along some of these issues. Now, it's going to be difficult. And if the CEOs do engage with affected communities, it's not always going to be comfortable because people who have been harmed or had ancestors who were harmed do not always see you in the best light, and you come to represent for them the pain.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sarah Federman

That's why I'm happy to work and talk to CEOs and other leaders about how to handle this, how to work together with affected communities.

Phil Wagner

But your work also suggests that they're not just lined up, ready to cut you down. That there is this sense that, in some cases, we really do want to partner together. That we acknowledge, this wasn't you. Right.

Sarah Federman

Yeah.

Phil Wagner

Research there as well.

Sarah Federman

Absolutely. So I interviewed 90 Holocaust survivors about the train issue because it blew up in the United States. So my book, Last Train to Auschwitz, talks about this train conflict for the French over time in the US. But most of the survivors did not want to go after the train company. They just saw that it was a complicated time, or they thought that it was too long ago. But what I thought was interesting is that the ones who fought actually did push something forward, which so I didn't want to judge how people make sense of their pain. They're going to make sense of it in different ways. But it's true. Not everybody is going to have that same opinion. You will not please everybody. But it's like there's a little piece of it left, or it wouldn't be a conversation. And the past, it'll erupt periodically. And what piece can we take care of now? And if you're going to do DEI work, you might as well. And you might find that there's a lot of history about the indigenous, but right now, it's a moment for Black Lives Matter. But I think on the heels of it, we're going to see the indigenous.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, cause it's a conversation opener, conversation stop. Okay, so I am a leader. It's 2022/23, and I do find those skeletons in my closet. What does your work suggest I do? Do I just handle it myself? Do I hire PR firm like a crisis? What happens when I find those things?

Sarah Federman

Yeah, so first, I recommend getting an independent historian because you may have in-house historians or people who manage the brand, but they're going to probably be have a little sympathy for the company. So you do want to get someone independent. There are independent historians that can do this work. These archives are sometimes difficult to find, but you do want that help or to call in historians who have been working in this area for a long time. So that's very important. So that's the first thing. The PR division, so the PR team, and the legal team might not be as supportive of what I'm saying, but I want you to listen to me too when you're talking to them because they have their important roles to play. When there's spin of a failed product line, just remember, this is a slightly different level, right? This is not there was too much salt in this bag of pretzels, or this is huge amounts of harm and irreparable harm. And that you might want to talk to people who are expert in the kind of harm and the way harm shows up transgenerationally because this is another thing people say, yeah, but okay, that happened a few hundred years ago. Like, these people aren't harmed, but there are people who can very well trace that harm.

Phil Wagner

Oh, yeah.

Sarah Federman

So separating kind of the PR from reckoning, it's a slightly different work, and the legal teams are going to be very careful because they're going to try to control the apology. So it doesn't sound like that there's some liability there. Do take a look at the Lloyd's of London and Baltimore Sun. When you do it well, and you own it, you actually earn more points than if you like hedge and sidestep. People know.

Phil Wagner

Yes, people know see right through it.

Sarah Federman

So those are really important. And then what's that commitment that you're going to do going forward? How are you going to work with affected communities? How are you going to work with your own employees and watch your product line going forward?

Phil Wagner

So is that the act of atonement? The collaboration, the working with is the act of atonement like reparations? We check the box, of course. It's beyond that, but what's that aspect?

Sarah Federman

It's the combination of transparency, apology, compensation, commemoration, victim services, and institutional reform.

Phil Wagner

So no wonder people hedge away from this because that's a huge package. Like, that's a big ask.

Sarah Federman

Yeah. And it doesn't all take huge amounts of time, but it can be emotionally powerful. When the SNCF comes to memorial events, it means something to people when they see that the company sponsored or they're there to just stand in and say, we care to lay a wreath. It's like the acknowledgment that people live with this harm and that somebody actually cares. So Donna Hicks work on dignity. You like Donna?

Phil Wagner

I love Donna Hicks. I talked about Donna Hicks on this podcast many times. Many times.

Sarah Federman

Yeah, she's wonderful. She talks about dignity violations and that her work in conflict has shown around the world that if you don't address the violation of dignity, then it doesn't matter what you pay, what you say. Survivors told me that Germany had written them such a beautiful letter after the Holocaust with this check, and a few of them told me that the letter was more important than the money.

Phil Wagner

Wow.

Sarah Federman

Because someone actually saw their pain.

Phil Wagner

Acknowledgment.

Sarah Federman

Yeah, so some of the behavior you see is a lack of acknowledgment, but you see the Armenians struggling for acknowledgment. Just say that you murdered us, right?

Phil Wagner

Yeah. You've talked about how you've made the leap from Auschwitz to where we are. I mean, this is diversity goes to work. And how can you make the leap? How do we trace this path from SNCF to BLM to George Floyd to other issues of maybe racial reckoning where we are right here, right now?

Sarah Federman

Yeah, I didn't expect to end up in the right here right now, but I taught in Baltimore after the Trains book. That's where I had a job. I worked with students who had grown up in Baltimore, largely predominantly black students, some from Africa, but predominantly black from the Baltimore area. And they really pushed me on this question of what about slavery? What about us? Why the Jews? And I thought, yeah, well, what is it about? Like, why did the Jews why were they so successful? And then we had that question last night, a student asking, well, what can we learn from how the Jews got reparations? And there is a lot to learn. And I wanted to share some of that because I know there's, like, some tensions between the Jewish community and the black community that have gone on in various ways. And I think there could be real allyship there in kind of saying, well, here's what worked. We didn't do so well, but maybe what will work for you? And there's so much beautiful work actually happening, of course, within the black community, but that we can partner on that. So they pushed me, and their push led me to study in Baltimore in the history of cotton capitalism and understanding that investment banking grew out of cotton capitalism in ways I had not expected.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sarah Federman

I mean, I love research in that way. You just discover, and if we can take this attitude of mutual discovery, I don't know what all happened. And, wow, how did that unfold? And how does it relate today?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, so beyond today and beyond Auschwitz, beyond BLM, do you see this work, this reckoning, moving beyond human rights? Are there other opportunities where you see this in climate moving beyond?

Sarah Federman

So climate, of course, is the most prevalent. I mean, right when Pakistan asked for reparations for the floods, the recent floods, saying we are the least contributors to climate change and we are suffering more than any other country right now. And that will continue. We're going to continue to see those who contributed the least suffering the most. They'll be reckoning, and there's going to be a lot of digging up of the companies. But also, when we're doing this, we, as consumers like you, can't raise your fist and pull up at Exon. So we're all in this with the stocks that we hold, with our consumer decisions. But if we can work together and not just like blame and shame each other but I definitely see climate, the other is animals and nature getting personhood. I don't know if I didn't mention this last night, but there were pigs that had personhood who were tried for murder.

Phil Wagner

Okay, we definitely did not talk about that.

Sarah Federman

In the oldie times, pigs were tried in court for the murder of their owners. Yeah.

Phil Wagner

Okay.

Sarah Federman

So this idea that animals might have rights, we're seeing rivers get personhood, some forests may get that as well. And then, groups will be given the opportunity to defend those legally. So I think our factory farming practices will come into question as we look ahead. But clearly, we're going to be judged for single-use plastic, and why are we desalinating and all of the things because we have so many solutions, and your students are going to be in positions to bring those solutions into the world?

Phil Wagner

So as leaders, we know that we're going to lead in times of reckoning. How do we set our minds so we don't fear that process? This isn't something to shy away from. This can actually be advantageous and mindset primarily.

Sarah Federman

Well, I think people want meaningful work, and you know, when I worked in business, people weren't all about destroying the planet. They weren't about that at all. They loved their jobs. They were looking for fulfillment. They were looking to provide for their families and feel good and that this work can be part of that fulfillment. It is interesting to study the past and to understand the roles we play, to think about the kind of world we want to leave behind for other generations. So I don't think that's any more than being a human who is just navigating complicated world. And even if your company isn't dealing with these particular reckoning issues, I'm telling you there is something right. There's something. I mean, you look back even 20 years ago to we didn't talk about me too. And companies are reckoning for that, right? Climates where women were sexually harassed, and all of that still kind of coming out, and there will be more. In a free society, there will be more, but we're seeing even in less free societies in Iran right now there's a huge, huge movement. So we're not ever given a past on doing ethical work and being alive.

Phil Wagner

That's a great sort of ending point here. I do have one more question for you, which is, I'm so glad I found you and found your work. Tell our listeners how they can do the same, how they can follow you, how they can support your work, where they can grab copies of your books.

Sarah Federman

Great. Yeah. So thank you. So the book last train to Auschwitz, which is the French National Railways, and The Journey to Accountability, that's available independent bookstores, available on Amazon, libraries. And I have some other books. You'll see my website, sarahfederman.com, has the books and articles that I've done for general business ethics and others. And you can send me an email on that website. I'm at Sarah Federman on all the social media platforms. I guess I was very excited when they all snagged all the Sarah Federmans, but yeah, on Twitter, I'm not posting about my breakfast. I will be writing things about corporate atonement, sometimes asking corporate leaders to please pay attention to certain things and really shining a light on some of the good things that businesses are doing. I mean, mushrooms, the amount that fungi are doing for replacing plastic packaging. I'm like so fascinated with, actually, this issue of the way in which that whole industry is exploding. So I'm looking for interesting ideas. As we know, the head of Patagonia is now investing his money in preventing more climate change. There's a good tax advantage to that for the family so that you get to see that there are some win-wins there.

Phil Wagner

Interesting. Definitely check out Sarah's work. Sarah, my friend, thank you for being here. Thanks for being on our podcast. Always just so inspiring to come into contact with your work and your ideas.

Sarah Federman

Thank you so much. Thanks for the invitation.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What are the various ways to view the role of social support within communities
• How adverse experiences shape and define our identity
• What is learned by examining those who have perpetrated sexual violence
• The role social support plays in preventing intimate partner violence
• What it is like working with the batterer intervention program
• How to treat perpetrators of intimate partner violence
• Why being trauma-focused can be beneficial in the work of work

Transcript

Natalie Hoskins

So I'm not trying to say that we're all traumatizing our children, but I am trying to broaden this picture of, like, as we grow up and we're trying to make sense of the world, all of these little things build up.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. I've recorded a few episodes lately, and I found myself reflecting upon the fact that I often say how much I love today's guest, or today's guest is a dear friend and not to be like, super on brand, but both of those are really true today. I really do appreciate today's guest for so many reasons, and we kind of go way back. We first met in Bailey Hall in the beautiful campus of the University of Kansas. I won't tell you how many years ago we are not spring chickens anymore, but today's guest, Natalie Hoskins, has always just been someone you want to learn from, somebody that I wanted to learn from. She's got such a multidimensional career background, and she's the type of person that makes an impact in all that she does. And as we kick off our October releases, a month we dedicate as Domestic Violence Awareness Month and a time we hold space to honor the stories of those impacted by domestic violence, it was clear to me that Natalie would offer an incredibly helpful perspective. So she's here to discuss with us today these issues. Currently, Natalie is a faculty member at Middle Tennessee State University. As a teacher and a scholar, Natalie explores issues of health, wellness, gender, social support, emotional expression, and interpersonal aggression, violence, and conflict. She's published in top journals such as the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and the Qualitative Report. In particular, Natalie has also spent a considerable amount of time working in batterer intervention programs or bips and with male perpetrators of violence against women. Today I'm so excited to talk with my friend, and I can promise you're in for a treat, too.

Phil Wagner

Welcome, Natalie. It's always an honor to speak with you, but really, in this context, I'm pretty excited about what we're going to unpack today. First things first, can you tell our listeners maybe a little bit more about who you are and what you do or what you study? I'm sure I bungled that bio in some way.

Natalie Hoskins

Oh, my gosh. No. That was the most excellent description of me ever, and I don't ever want to be described as anything different.

Phil Wagner

Okay.

Natalie Hoskins

Thank you for that.

Phil Wagner

I'll send you the script easy.

Natalie Hoskins

Yeah. I would only add that I really enjoy community building and making connections with people, and I think that's actually part of what might be considered at the root of the research that I've done because those bonds or connections, relationships with people that are, like, mutually beneficial are at the root of our interpersonal relationships and our health and well being.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, so as we talk about interpersonal violence today, I want to balance a little yin with the yang, and I want to go to sort of the other side of the equation. I'd love to start the conversation by talking about social support with you. Actually, kind of how we met was around this very idea. We took a seminar together in our grad school days on social support. One of my best classes, one of my favorite classes ever with a genius scholar. You and I both know her well. Dr. Adrian Kunkel. Social support is one of those buzzwords in the context of the world of work that we sort of know what it is. We sort kinda can spot it when we see it. But can you give us an everyday person's framing of social support?

Natalie Hoskins

Yeah, I think the thing that really is difficult about understanding social support is that it has a long history and evolution of being researched and talked about in different ways and from different perspectives. So I don't think there's a nutshell for social support. It's almost too big. There are kind of two areas of social support that are useful to hold on to. One is that social support is receiving support, giving and receiving support that is perceived as helpful by the recipient. And there are lots of different kinds of supportive communication. So we can give emotional support, which is understanding, listening, empathy. We can give material support, which is something that's tangible, and that's another word for materials, tangible support and informational support, and so on. Like, giving and receiving support is kind of one of the most obvious definitions of social support. But I really like to think of this other way of seeing social support, which is actually the perception that one is belonging, the sense of belonging or acceptance in a social group or social relationship. You can see those are two very different ways of looking at it. But they're both simultaneously in that umbrella of social support.

Phil Wagner

Yes, I think they both fit well with the theme of our podcast writ large and then our podcast episode today. In particular, you study social support in the context of what you call adverse experiences or adverse emotions. I think, of course, that's the context today. I want to start to think about domestic violence and what that looks like, and we'll get there in a second. But can you speak a bit more on how adverse experiences shape and define who we are and impact our identity, the way we see ourselves, the way the world sees us?

Natalie Hoskins

So this is really where you can see that communication takes a lot from psychology research. All along our lifespan at different life stages. Our identities are shaped through our experiences, through observations of others, through indirect and direct messages that we receive about what's right and wrong and who we are, cultural norms, expectations of behavior, and all of that. And so everybody develops a sense of self, right? Then we create a worldview how we see the world, what we believe, what we value, and so on. So when we experience adversity, which is just simply another word for a negative experience or an experience that causes us to have distress or negative feelings. Those experiences add to that shaping of self because they contribute to all of those beliefs of what's right and wrong and so on. And so if adversity, we encounter adversity, and it doesn't align with what we believe, and it violates our worldview, then we have to make sense of it or reconcile it so that it fits. Or we can say, okay, I understand why that happened, and it doesn't define me, and I can move on past that and learn and grow from it and put it in the past. But like I was saying before, we can't do that if we don't have the tools and the skills and the support to make sense of it, to reconcile these opposing beliefs and values. And so it really is a communicative process where we have to rely on our ability to ask for help and talk to others so that we can what's called assimilate an adverse experience into our kind of timeline of events, so it doesn't stand out and become something that we ruminate about or become intrusive or have a traumatic health effect. I mean, really, to answer your question, these adverse experiences shape who we are because they can either stand out and change our definition of self as being someone to whom bad stuff happens or someone who's deserving of these adverse experiences or someone who's to blame for these adverse experiences. But when we have people to bounce these things off of and make sense of them who really care about us, and we can say, no, that's just a bad thing that happened to me. It doesn't define who I am.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So, of course, we're here to talk about domestic violence advocacy. And you and I early on had some relationship convergence around not only that theme but also sexual violence advocacy. We did some service learning stuff together, and we've continued to have conversations over the years about this. I want to see if I can recount my observation of your work and a little bit distant from it from you. But I remember when you began a research trajectory looking at acts of interpersonal violence that had played out and then sort of the redemptive process of rebuilding life and identity after. And it was easy for me to see why we would focus on adverse experiences among victims or survivors of domestic and sexual violence. But you took this in a radically different direction. And I'm wondering if you can unpack some of your work with interpersonal violence perpetrators, I mean, specifically men. You've found your way into batterer intervention groups, and I know you're somebody who is driven by a deep commitment to justice. Why spend your time examining those who have perpetrated acts of violence and not those who have been impacted by them? Can you talk a little bit about the adverse experiences cycle for those who have perpetrated violence? Because I think that tees up some important things we can unpack throughout the rest of our conversation today.

Natalie Hoskins

Yeah, that's great because I do remember. It's so funny because you're talking about remembering graduate school and I'm like, wait, do I also remember that?

Phil Wagner

I don't know.

Natalie Hoskins

Yes, okay, I do remember taking a seminar on social support. Okay, it's there. But I remember that you also had an interest in masculinities, as did I during our time together at KU. And what really drove me to look at perpetrators instead of the survivors or victims of intimate partner violence was that I was simultaneously studying social support communication and gender communication. And so, while I was learning about gender socialization and how we are all gendered, I was learning about the stereotypical masculine gender roles and characteristics as well as feminine stereotypical gender roles and characteristics. And some of these things were not new to me, but because I was learning about them in tandem with these supportive communication concepts, I started to think over I'm over here learning. Okay, so support can buffer the effects of stress. Okay, but over here, when I'm learning about gender, men and boys are taught not to ask for help. So wait a minute, there's something going on here. I'm really interested in this. And it actually came up at some point because of my work with Adrianne.

Phil Wagner

Who's our adviser, by the way? We'll give her a shout on this podcast. Dr. Adrianne Kunkle. Just one of the most wonderful, smart, just a perfect human, if such a thing exists. So shout out to Adrianne Kunkel but yeah.

Natalie Hoskins

A beautiful soul with a giving heart and wonderful funny and everything. Just a perfect tent. Her work with domestic violence survivors and how that was incorporated in social support seminar. My work with gender all kind of coalesced at this time, and I really was interested in, well, wait a minute, how can we truly intervene or engage in restorative justice if we're not looking at the lives of the perpetrators? And so I became aware of batterer intervention programs in our area in Kansas. I began talking with the people who ran the program, and it made sense. It just all came together for me.

Phil Wagner

So put it all together for us. One of your most recent published pieces looks at the role of social support in life and how that might impact men across the lifespan and, in particular, their drive to commit interpersonal violence. I hope I'm wording that correctly. So can you maybe unpack the role that support plays in indeed buffering against stress and then intent to commit violence or actual commission of violence?

Natalie Hoskins

Yeah. First thing I want to do is I want to pause here and say, and I think that it was implied earlier when you told our audience that I made, like, a specific, intentional turn to look at men. I really want to pause and say my research, and the research is related to it, could easily be applied to anybody.

Phil Wagner

Sure, sure.

Natalie Hoskins

All genders, no matter your identity, could potentially be socialized with what we call so-called masculine ideologies. I really think it's important that while my research does look at men and how they were socialized and how they experienced social support and how that related to their perpetration of violence, I think it would map on to anybody. So social support, as I said briefly, has the ability or has been shown over and over again to buffer the effects of stress. And so it shows up in these men's lives because the men, particularly, that I worked with over and over would tell stories about how they didn't have people to talk to. They were discouraged from talking to people, that it was not only frowned upon to ask for help because that was a feminine behavior but that it was also dangerous to ask for help. There were dangerous consequences for some people to ask for help from situations that were traumatizing for them. And so, what role does support play in their moving from these adverse experiences into lives of violent behaviors? Again, this is where we kind of connect to the research in other fields. But if a person so I'm taking a broader outside of men, if a person is continuously told, you're not accepted. You don't belong. And these messages seem to be interpreted from the behaviors that children experience when they're abused or neglected. So these adverse experiences are typically extreme experiences of abuse, but they're also household dysfunction experiences that, in one way or another, communicate to the child that they're not valued or that they're not taken care of. I mean, even my own kids, even my own kids, when I do something that to me seems so little like, I don't feel like telling you a bedtime story tonight. Mom's tired. Right? Later on, I come to find out they're like, that made me feel like you don't care about me. Right. So I'm not trying to say that we're all traumatizing our children, but I am trying to broaden this picture of, like, as we grow up and we're trying to make sense of the world. All of these little things build up into our worldview and our sense of self. And if you're in an environment where you're constantly being told, or constantly being demonstrated, that you have little value, that you are going to start to internalize that. And one of the communicative behaviors we engage in when we feel like we're hurt or belittled or weak, or somehow demeaned all the time is behaviors of self-protection. So it doesn't always result in intimate partner violence or physical or psychological, or sexual violence. Sometimes it's just being really shitty, right? I don't know about you, but when my cup is empty, you know the metaphor of when your cup is full, you've got lots of positive energy. When your cup is empty, it's been depleted. When my cup is empty, I can be kind of a jerk because I'm, like, get away from me. I can't take any more stress or problems. And so human behavior, human reaction to stress, is self-protection. And so social supports, having people who make us feel like we belong, having people that are available, or at least perceived as being available to talk to in times of need and then beyond that perception, people who are actually giving us helpful support, like tangible support, emotional support and so on. Cognitive support is another one I didn't mentioned earlier, where people, when we talk to them, can help us by giving us advice and helping us make sense. That helps us to feel like we're valuable, as well as move forward and become resilient in times of adversity. You know, if we don't have resilience, then adversity can actually break us down. Resilience allows us to grow from adversity. But if we don't have that, then we tend to get sick, or we tend to have mental health issues. I think I answered your question. But I'll say one more thing. The men that I worked with, they had a compound effect, or I mean, I don't want to say effect because, you know, this wasn't quantitative research. This wasn't I wasn't trying to show cause and effect here, nor do I try to claim that this is a direct cause. But they have this influence, like this coalescence of events in their young adolescents or early childhood, where they were made to feel like they were unimportant to the people who should have been making them feel valuable. And they were also told or shown that they couldn't ask for help or that there was no one there to help them. Or that they were told you need to take care of yourself. So this like what we would call it stereotypical masculinization, right? This like be tough, be self-reliant, be strong, and whatever. Don't show your emotions because that's all feminine stuff, right? Being weak and asking for help, they got that in. I don't know what the expression is. They got a lot of that, but then they also didn't have anyone to help them, with very few exceptions. And we can talk about that because I wrote a little bit about that kind of surrogate support because, ultimately, we're social animals, and we will seek out support, but if we can't find it, it's really damaging.

Phil Wagner

So talk to me. Someone committed to restorative justice. You have to surely make some. Maybe they're not concessions, but you had to reconcile. Like, this is a heavy thing to balance, right? You're trying to bring dignity back to men whose dignity has been sort of violated somewhere throughout the lifespan. But these are the same men who have sort of violated the dignity and safety, and identity of others as they have perpetrated acts of violence. As somebody committed to, you know, trauma-informed being trauma-informed, I should say, or someone committed to restorative justice, what does it look like in your head as you reconcile, okay, I'm working with quote-unquote the enemy? I'm working with people who have perpetrated acts of heinous violence in some cases.

Natalie Hoskins

Yeah, I did struggle at times because I don't write about it. I haven't figured out how to write about it yet, but I interviewed them and asked them to tell me about their violence. I sat in the groups, these VIP groups, and I listened to them describe their violence. So I think I struggled a little bit in the beginning. Like, what am I doing? Oh, my goodness. I had that kind of question or doubt of, am I doing something wrong here? Am I in the wrong place? I stood out as a female researcher, a young female researcher in a group full of men, with the exception of one of our terrific facilitators, who's also a woman. But anyway, like, I have no struggle with it now, and nor did I for most of my work, because the way I see it is people won't be able to stop hurting people until they stop hurting. And so I didn't make that expression up. Like, there's some expression that goes, and I.

Phil Wagner

Hurt people, hurt people.

Natalie Hoskins

That's right, that's it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Natalie Hoskins

And so yes, of course, I'm grateful that the programming and the facilitators I worked with, and this is true for most batterer intervention programs because the programmatic designs are all kind of coming out of the same place and the same ideology. They all tend to balance the goal of increasing the safety of families and survivors, of holding perpetrators accountable for their acts of violence while also asking them to reflect and grow and build and restore. So with all that being said, it's just there is no other way to do it. I don't think that we can have a decrease in violence in relationships until we address the harm that's been done to the perpetrators. And really, ideally, I am an idealist. Sometimes I regret it, but really, I think what would be amazing is to have parenting programs in place so that we could get to parents before they really hurt children. I know I hear myself saying it, and it's like, oh, my gosh, such an idealist. Like, there's no social service in the United States that can afford to do all of that. But anyway.

Phil Wagner

But that's where the inflection point is. That's where this really goes back to, is a cycle, right?

Natalie Hoskins

It does. And I absolutely feel that we have to give services and resources to victims and survivors, and none of the work that I do suggests otherwise. But if we don't have resources and services for perpetrators, then they're just going to do it again and again and again. Because, like I said, and this is again in a different discipline, mostly psychological and criminal justice research, it's just a cycle of violence. It's what they have learned to do to protect themselves, and so they are going to continue to do it until something stops them.

Phil Wagner

So, Natalie, talk to me about the overall takeaway, then, of your work. I think you're still piecing together what that means for you as a scholar, right and how you reconcile all these things. And I know your work isn't sort of to give a pass for acts of intimate partner violence, but how might your work shape our understanding of how to work with those who have committed acts of violence or maybe other forms of dignity violations? I mean, I find your work to be redemptive without sacrificing accountability. So how do we take that and put it into a model we can put into practice in our day-to-day lives?

Natalie Hoskins

Oh, I love that you ask that because, like yourself, my day-to-day life is teaching, right? I teach my kids. That's not my job, obviously, but I spend a lot of time, more time than at my job, teaching my children. When I have the opportunity, I teach neighbors or community members. I don't always try to be like the pedantic lecturing friend. And then, of course, my profession is that I'm a professor, and I teach. The answer to your question is really that our day-to-day lives should involve our awareness of other people's trauma. And you mentioned being trauma-informed earlier, and I think that's super important. So trauma-informed allows us to recognize that when people have traumatic experiences that are either chronic, and they continue to experience or that in the past, that they've not really healed from them or processed them, that will affect how they're able to interact with you or the space and participate in whatever it is that you're offering them. So, for me, I'm offering them an education. For some of your audience, it's perhaps they're offering a client relationship, a service, some kind of business interaction. And if we don't acknowledge that people have these adverse experiences and, you know, whole host of beliefs about guardedness and protecting themselves or, you know, skepticisms about interpersonal interactions, then we're really going to miss the boat on what types of quality interactions we can have. So something that I've started to do in my work I can't not apply what I know to my family life. And so I really do want to emphasize that while I try to imbue it in my work, it's also something I'm injecting into raising my children, who are now teenagers. But I start a semester now by having a conversation about this, and it's not like, I don't want anybody to think that I'm, like, all feelings and fluff and there's no hard work. But research shows us that students can't learn if they are guarded, if they are stressed if they are suffering. And so it's not just touchy-feely stuff. It's scientific, empirical evidence that shows that you have to give a little bit of space for building rapport and gaining trust before you can actually move forward with asking them to do the hard work. Right? And so most of the time, our first day of a semester is, like, here's like a water hose. You remember the movie UHF? You want to drink from the water hose or the fire hose? The fire hose.

Phil Wagner

You're revealing our age in so many ways. You're talking about teenagers as kids and old movies, but yes, I'm with you.

Natalie Hoskins

And I'm older than you, so I don't know what you're talking about. So, first day, we always want them to, you know, here's the syllabus stuff, and all the policies, and these are all the assignments and blah, blah. And it's like information overload, even for the most stable person. But, you know, these young students, typically traditional students, are 18 to 23. And with COVID and with the rise in mental illness, rise in social media, and anxiety, all these things are documented empirical findings. Our students come to us in real bad shape often, and they're starting the semester with five classes, sometimes five, six, sometimes. And yours isn't the most important thing in their life. And if you don't acknowledge it, they may not even be listening to you on the first day. So that's what I do. I really think that we can take not even just a trauma-informed approach but a trauma-focused approach, which is that, like, we openly acknowledge that people are experiencing challenges that may disrupt their ability to engage in whatever it is that they're coming to you to engage in.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Natalie Hoskins

Yeah, so I think that it's really important and entirely possible for everybody to be somewhat trauma focused in whatever work that they do.

Phil Wagner

Oh, that's so good. It's always good to speak with you, but thank you. I mean, thanks for sharing time to speak to your work and your experiences and helping us think about intervening and establishing social support as a norm. You know, dignity affirmations as a norm and how that can shift the cycle of intimate partner violence. And really, I think so many of the issues that we see play out in the DEIB space. So, my friend, thank you for your conversation today. Always a pleasure to speak with you.

Natalie Hoskins

Thank you very much.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What the goal of PAVE Prevention is
• The role martial arts has played in Arlene's life
• What links the work of PAVE to martial arts and sports
• How martial arts can help victims of domestic violence
• How PAVE is helping support the city of Oakland
• Why should DEI practitioners consider safety, trauma, and violence within the broader realm of DEI leadership issues
• How PAVE helps employees at the workplace
• What are PAVE's methods for actualizing change in the world of work
• How leaders and managers can create a safer work environment for survivors of DV

Transcript

Arlene Limas

Normalize mistakes and have conversations around intention. Just think about how that could change a work culture.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome listeners to Diversity Goes to Work. Today, it is an honor to host one of the greatest athletes of our time. Arlene Limas is one of the greatest taekwondo authorities of the 20th century. She's a history maker, having been the first American and the first female to win the gold medal of the 24th Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea, in Taekwondo in 1988. And she has been breaking barriers ever since. She opened up Power Kicks Martial Arts Studio and now currently serves as the CEO of PAVE Prevention. Now, Arlene is going to take a little bit more time to explain her vision and the mission of PAVE. Broadly speaking, she works to provide training to organizations using a trauma-informed model to empower employees and organizations for better performance, stronger engagement, healthier work cultures.

Phil Wagner

Arlene, it is a true honor to speak with you. Thank you for the important work that you do, and thank you for making time to be on our podcast today.

Arlene Limas

Sure, Phil. Thank you so much first for having me. We've had some cool discussions already, so I'm looking forward to this discussion. As you said, I took the helm took the leadership position for a start-up about 16/17 months ago now at PAVE Prevention, which stands for Proactive Antiviolence Education. And our goal is I feel like I'm tasked with reducing violence in the workplace and imparting a skill set to employees to offset violence. And when I say violence, it's the full spectrum from toxicity and microaggression to full-blown physical events. I think now is the time, as the world returns to work and is looking for new and fresh and innovative ideas, now is the time to impart the skill set.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I'm really excited to hear about that reimagining. In many ways, we're reimagining the world of work writ large. And I know you have some very creative applications of things you're asking professions to reimagine. We'll get there in a bit. But I have to tell you, I just have to sort of fan for a moment, and I'd love for our listeners to hear a little bit more. We share a mutual love for martial arts. It's part of my story, but it's obviously a huge part of yours. Can you share more about your experience in martial arts and the Olympics specifically? What an incredible story you have.

Arlene Limas

Yeah, I mean, I don't know much life without martial arts. I started when I was five, so that's, you know, 51 years of being a martial artist.

Phil Wagner

Wow.

Arlene Limas

So I don't have much memory without it. I started my brothers. I have four older brothers and two older sisters, but all four of my brothers did martial arts at some point of their life. And my father was a boxer, so we come by combatives quite naturally. And, yeah, I'm the baby. I wanted to do what they were doing, and they let me tag along in the beginning. And when I started martial arts, I was the only female and the only non-adult in the school. So I was more like a mascot than a true participant.

Phil Wagner

That's awesome.

Arlene Limas

I just was a sponge. I just fell in love with it. And then, a couple of years after I had started martial arts, then the Bruce Lee craze hit, and then martial arts schools became much more mainstream. And I think the light bulb went off for school owners that, you know, parents will do anything for their kids.

Phil Wagner

Yes.

Arlene Limas

So if we can create a curriculum that fits training for young people and makes it safer and more accessible, then it would thrive. And it did. And I think it's an incredible skill set to impart to young people. But so that's how I started. I started in Shaolin Kung Fu, not Taekwondo. So I was a Kung Fu artist first, and I still consider myself a Kung Fu-ist and found myself loving the competition aspect of it. Local tournaments, then regional tournaments, then national tournaments. Competition led me to the Olympic games. And that was just an incredible experience to be able to participate in Taekwondo the first time it was included in the Olympic games, and then to have the success not only that I had but the whole USA team had at that Olympic games was just awesome.

Phil Wagner

That is fantastic.

Arlene Limas

And it's just opened up. I mean, we know that sport teaches us so much, right? It gives us such preparation for real life. Yeah. I mean, just to have all the gifts that not only sport but martial arts and sport together have given me it's been an incredible experience.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And it's so exciting to speak with you again. Just true history-maker in our presence. I think many people switching to sort of the work that you do now. Many people might be surprised to link up martial arts and a commitment to peace and nonviolence. Right? So, like kicking, punching, the art of what you do, it seems silent, right? But the work of PAVE and the work that you do very much echoes this deep commitment to peace and nonviolence. Situate those together, link those together a little bit for us. How do you see those going hand in hand?

Arlene Limas

I think once a person feels very secure in their own abilities, then their defensiveness and their quick reactions, they mellow a little. You know, I used to constantly have these discussions with parents who would say, my kid is aggressive and, you know, he's prone to fighting in school, and people keep telling me to bring in the martial arts, but it seems counterproductive. And I would just say the more confident your child is in their ability. There's no need to fight for it. Then it's just I'm comfortable. I can walk away from this clearly. I don't need to engage in a fight because I'm comfortable in it. And I think there's a different swag you have, and your approach to de-escalation is different. As a martial artist, I know for me that is de-escalating a situation, walking away from a situation. The confidence that I have because of sport and martial arts just allows me to do that time and time and time again. And I think it's a skill set everybody should be gifted to be able to do that. As martial artists, we're constantly we know the concepts of when somebody pulls you, you push, and you let them come. You know what I mean? The concepts of working with energy and when you take that idea of working with energy and put it in other practices, it just makes so much sense.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. We got together, our first conversation that you and I ever had was around victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. And so I was wondering, can you situate this work, martial arts, and nonviolent prevention within that conversation too? As this airs, we're heading into Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and your work speaks to that, I think so, soundly. So I was wondering if you can link those together for us.

Arlene Limas

Sure. I think one of the main things that our training, PAVE programming, and where we're rooted empowerment self-defense. I think one of the things that gets overlooked is how much this training and this skill set allows people to heal and regain trust in their body, trust in their intuition, trust in their physical strengths. And I think that's what martial arts also gives people. It allows them to start trusting themselves and their skill set, and their abilities. And sometimes that comes in the shape of a student that comes in and drops 75 pounds because of the training. So that's a physical metamorphosis in a sense, right, but then there's also the person who just feels more confident in their own skin, and they know they can protect themselves in certain senses, in certain scenarios. So I think the healing portion of what martial arts and empowerment, self-defense, and paid programming bring to situations it's a huge benefit that sometimes doesn't get all the airtime that it deserves. But really, I think as people come out of traumatic events, there really is a sense of trust that they have to redevelop. Trust in their own decision-making, trust in their intuition, trust in people. And I think training along the lines of martial arts, empowerment, self-defense, and working through trauma-informed scenarios and exercise really allows people to regain that power again.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I think that's the angle even for today's episode. We bring on a lot of folks who do DEI consulting or organizational management consulting. The work that you do with an organization and using that trauma-informed model, I think, is what really differentiates PAVE prevention. And I think in so many ways, what you're doing is you're asking folks to just sort of reimagine what's possible, right, reimagine what's possible with your body. But you also do work on a larger level, just reimagining occupations. I know you are doing some work in Oakland, reimagining law enforcement and a few other areas as well. I'm wondering if you can speak to that work because I think would be of particular interest how you're bringing that trauma-informed model and really sort of disrupting the norms of long-standing professional acts and activities. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that with us?

Arlene Limas

Yeah. We're very fortunate to land some really meaningful work in Oakland. And we're very proud of the programming we put together for this opportunity. The city of Oakland and the community in Oakland, like a lot of communities, they made their voices known that things needed to change around law enforcement, and there needed to be some conversations had. And out of those conversations in Oakland was born a community responder program called MACRO Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland MACRO. That's a mouthful.

Phil Wagner

It is a mouthful.

Arlene Limas

The way MACRO is set up. It is a team of two. One is an EMT or paramedic-type background, and then the other is a community representative or someone who has come out of the communities that they're serving. And we were fortunate enough to win the training opportunities. So we have trained two cohorts of MACRO Responders. We were so honored at this opportunity, but really we were like, oh my gosh, this is such important work. We've really got to dive in and put something fantastic together. And I think we did. And we focused a lot on things that I don't think people would check the box kind of training would have presented. And I think that's why we won the work. But we did a lot of work on communication styles. Think creating workplaces that people know each other's communication styles and know how they like to be communicated with is really important. You wouldn't think that in violence prevention, but when you're talking about microaggressions, it definitely is violence.

Phil Wagner

For sure, for sure.

Arlene Limas

So we did a lot of work about communication styles. We did a lot of work on resilience and self-care, which, again, you don't normally think about this in a responder capacity, but you know, you got to put on be able to put on your mask first before you can put the mask of the person sitting next to you. So you have to take care of yourself. So we created a fantastic check-in policy and check-out policy for yourself and for your partner. We did a lot of work on what it means to be adrenalized, how to acknowledge when you're adrenalized, how to acknowledge when someone is adrenalized that you're trying to interact with, in addition to all the other things like situational awareness. And we really put together an incredible program, and it's showing, it's showing its value. The last statistics I heard of from Elliot Jones Jr., the Director there, over 3,000 incidents responded to, that's 3,000 incidents that the police aren't going to, you know.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Arlene Limas

And they are coming home safely, which is the biggest thing. Right. That's the most important thing for us. And we're just very proud of that work. And it looks like it's already being valued. The Oakland Parks and Rec have reached out to us about training their park stewards program. We're hoping to have the opportunity to train Alameda County's Library staff there. So I think that this template is going to show its value again and again and again.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I love this, and I think, again, it's reimagining what's possible, reimagining what we know as the norm because these are certainly not normal times. PAVE prevention utilizes evidence-based trauma-informed programming. And you've spoken to this, but your real goal here, I think, is to empower employees, particularly on your web presence. I mean, you bring it back to that every single time. This is about empowering individuals and then cultivating safe work environments. In this conversation for DEI practitioners, why should we consider safety, trauma, violence within this broader realm of issues that we're dealing with in DEI leadership? How might those actually play out in a work environment that would be of importance to people like us?

Arlene Limas

Well, I think, first and foremost, we need to acknowledge the elephant in the room. And the elephant in the room is that on a daily basis, people are being impacted by violence. Directly, indirectly, one step removed, third person, removed. We are being impacted with violence. So we know that we have coworkers that may be struggling today because it's the anniversary of a family member who participated in violence against self, took their own life. So it needs to be part of the discussion if we're going to get the most out of that employee or at least create a culture that the employee feels comfortable discussing this or talking about it. So that's just one example of violence impacting us. Right. If I grew up in a community that was riddled with gun violence, and then it's an anniversary of a friend who I lost to gun violence, or maybe there's an occurrence in my neighborhood that's gotten a lot of publicity, I think we need to acknowledge in the workplace that I might be triggered and I might not be hitting on all cylinders that day.

Phil Wagner

So does this apply even to just this sort of broader social context in that we are a society now seemingly inundated with violence? I mean, the level of gun violence in the nation is just at a catastrophic level. Is this just we all carry in everyday threats or fears about that violence too? Does that factor in?

Arlene Limas

Phil, I would argue yes. I would argue yes.

Phil Wagner

And certainly for a person of color, a few months ago, we had the shooting in Buffalo, right? So if it hits in certain community lines or certain intersectionalities, that might factor in more saliently than others. But I think that's really profound because I think, again, you can argue this is kind of a society riddled with violence everywhere you look.

Arlene Limas

Yeah. And then you have cascading traumatic events, right? This new phenomenon that we're almost overwhelmed. Unfortunately, we're dealing with a pandemic. We're dealing with the financial crisis. We're dealing with everything that's being thrown at us on a daily basis. It definitely is something we need to approach differently if we are going to provide healthy, safe, productive workplaces. But not only that, for the people who care about their bottom line. If we're going to improve our bottom line, we have to improve the culture of our workplace and start acknowledging that this, unfortunately, is impacting our employees. So we need to have these discussions. We need to create better cultures, more communication. We need to a good friend of mine. I swear I use this ten times a day. We need to normalize mistakes and have conversations around intention.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Arlene Limas

I mean, I just love that quote of hers, Julie Harmon. Normalize mistakes and have conversations around intention. Just think about how that could change a work culture.

Phil Wagner

I've heard you in the past talk about this is sort of a domino effect, right, that all of these things stack on top of each other, stack on top of each other and the felt consequences, particularly to those individuals. But in this context, the employee is not even just performance, but it's a suppression of passion or engagement or imagination and creativity and commitment. And so I think all of those have direct applicability to our listeners, people who are leading in the world of work, to say, okay, this trauma-informed model is a model that is certainly worthwhile for our efforts.

Arlene Limas

Yeah, definitely. And I'll share with you this is why I think I'm having the impact, and I'm ringing on people's ears with my message like I am the success that I'm having. It's because everybody can see it when it's an athlete. So in the sport of Taekwondo for a while, and some may argue still current day, we were riddled with predatory coaches, a system that didn't protect our athletes, and you could see it. So when I give you the description of an athlete that's on an upward trajectory, winning everything, and then all of a sudden, bam, they're not able to make weight, they're missing workouts, they're not quite as focused in the ring, or they've lost their passion for what they love, the sport that they love. And then you find out, man, they're underage. They were in a relationship with their coach, or they were being abused, or they were assaulted, or God forbid, they were raped. And then, of course, it makes perfect sense why their production, why their performances suffered, why they couldn't focus, why they couldn't make weight. It's the same thing happening in the workplace. That's the athletes workplace, right? The field of play is the athletes workplace, but that's happening in hospitals, in the hospitality sector, so we see it. When I give that description in an athletic form, it makes sense all of a sudden to people. They can see it. Oh yeah, I see how that could happen. And then, when you couple that with a system that doesn't protect the athlete or doesn't protect the employee right. Then you have things like someone who comes forward, and that athlete loses everything. They lose their funding to pursue their dream. They lose their health care. They lose their financial security. If they're a resident athlete at the Olympic Training Center, they've now lost their home. It's the same thing. Now you just take that picture and put it in the workplace, in the conventional workplace, not the sporting workplace. And you see the parallel.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, absolutely. Now, does your work really explore just those outside occurrences of violence and how they impact people when they clock into their nine-to-five, or I think a lot of people might be surprised at the data on the prevalence of workplace violence? Specifically, do you do anything with violent workplaces? Is that how does PAVE do anything in that capacity?

Arlene Limas

Yeah, I mean, we're imparting the skill set to offset microaggressions, to have discussions, and set boundaries around toxicity. And when I say microaggression, sometimes people kind of scratch their head, you know, microaggressions, it's not only the off-the-cuff inappropriate joke or the off-the-cuff racial comment. It's things like things by omission, you're not invited to meetings, or you're not included on projects, or microaggressions cover a lot. And there is also research that I think I read it was something like 17 steps happen before there's a physical violent event. So imagine if we're given that skill set at work to offset it at the third one, the third little incident. Yeah, we are definitely imparting one. We want to help people heal from things that are happening outside of their workplace that they could be bringing into the workplace. But we also want to give them the skill set to deal with things at work as well. So we say at PAVE, you know, we give you the skill set to prevent we give you the skill set to react in real-time, set a boundary. No, I'm not comfortable working for another weekend. Can we have a discussion around that? And to heal from violent events. So the full spectrum of that, and I think that's really where it strength lies because you can't just hit one side or the other. I think it's going to take that full holistic approach.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, absolutely. And I see how all of those things start to sum to something even more consequential. I think there's something like just under 500 fatalities due to workplace violence every single year, 20 some thousand workers impacted by nonfatal workplace trauma. And so, again, if you can address this at level three instead of level 17, I think you're also impacting much more consequential outcomes than you may ever realize. So tell me what PAVE then does specifically, like, let's say I'm like, okay, this is a lens that I want to take. This is a programmatic effort that I want to partake in. I want to bring this to my organization. So let's say I call you, Arlene, and say hey, I need you to come in and start doing some stuff. What is your programming look like? What's your model for actualizing change within organizations to lead to a healthier world of work?

Arlene Limas

We're heavy on assessments, so we have designed and developed a set of assessments. One that the individual employee takes around assertiveness, empathy, things like this, we're able to give feedback on. Second is the what we call our Employee Experience Survey. And that's an organizational assessment that gives feedback to the organization, to the company, on, you know, indicators on violence in their workplace, you know, what type of culture do they have around toxicity and aggression? So we feel it's very meaningful. There is nothing like that out there from what we can tell and what we researched. I think it's going to be very impactful as we start gathering more and more data with that assessment. But we use those assessments to then tailor our training for each of our clients. The scenarios are customized that we go through, and we are heavy on scenarios because we just retain information differently when we're adrenalized. So if we can run people through scenarios and then have discussions after, it's just a different way of learning. And we'll hold on to those lessons that we've learned at a higher rate and a stronger rate. So then we impart our training. We circle back to make sure that training in three months, in six months, and nine months, and we're able to give scores from those assessments. And then, okay, we improved, we're showing an improvement, and then circle back with other training where it's needed. We also have a managerial or C suite. It's not necessarily an assessment, but it is a questionnaire on, okay, now let's sit at a table and let's discuss what you have that's working and what we feel we can change or tweak or add or offer that can improve culture. So it really is a holistic approach. It's all stakeholders. And that's how I think meaningful change occurs. I think it's something it's just like sports. You have to create muscle memory, right? If I want to improve a certain kick, I have to create a technique and muscle memory that allows me to kick correctly. So I don't think this is a one-and-done, which is what a lot of violence prevention training is. I think it's something that has to be continually strengthened, and new things may occur, and then they have to be added into the plan. I think it's got to be evergrowing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. How do you battle within the assessment framework? How do you grapple with folks who might be a little reticent to share their experiences? I imagine it's probably they're not so hesitant to share it with you as they are. Ha ha. Could this be identifiable information that gets back to my boss and puts me in an awkward position because I've ratted things out? I think this is something we often really have to grapple with when we do any assessments in DEI work writ large. Have you found a solution or any ideas for how you address that?

Arlene Limas

I mean, the only thing we've done, and again, this is out of my realm of strength here.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, for sure.

Arlene Limas

But the people that we have brought in to develop our assessments and develop our platform, we never see their emails. We never see their names. They're given a number, and they can access their scores via a number. So it's very important to us that they feel safe, that that information is protected, and there's no way that we can circle back with this and that they can be pinpointed or questioned or worse. Right.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Arlene Limas

We're hoping that we are putting a lot of time I'll share with you, Phil, we are putting a lot of time in our communication plan on how we communicate what those assessments are and what they mean and how important they are and how protected the people who take them are. So we have put a lot of thought into that and, of course, all the top security measures that could possibly that we could possibly put in. Because if someone takes a leap of faith with us and says, okay, give me this data on violence and toxic culture in my workplace, in my company, we don't want that ever to be used against them. We want that information to be used for good and not to be weaponized against them. So it's very important to us that we protect our clients and we protect the employees as well. So this is a full spectrum that we've given a lot of thought to.

Phil Wagner

No, I think that's important, being ever mindful of vendors that you liaise with and also ever mindful of security and protection and privacy. I think as we continue to move from the place of data-driven change-making, got to really look at the integrity of that data. And so I appreciate you sharing there. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you measure that change? You mentioned this isn't a checkbox. This isn't a one-and-done. That's what really sets you apart. So as you implement that tailored programming, when and how do you come back to say we've accomplished our mission? This is a certifiable nonviolent workplace. Does it end in that outcome? What is the outcome?

Arlene Limas

Well, I mean, in a perfect world, my friend Phil, in a perfect world, we're back here in five years or three years, and the term PAVE compliant or PAVE compliance officer is normal vernacular. I mean, everybody is comfortable with that. But yeah, that's how I envision it. I envision it either an HR person being completely certified under PAVE prevention and being able to do continued learning there or a PAVE person is now being brought into the HR department and finding innovative and creative ways to continue this training. But as we now see LEED stickers on the front of buildings that say it's been built in clean and thoughtful ways and it is sustainable, maybe someday, maybe three to five years, there will be a PAVE sticker that is on the bottom of a web page when you go to seek a job there. But that's how I envision it. So we'll see. And for me this is a bit of a Trojan horse for me. Phil, I'm going to come clean, right? I know that when we instill this, we impart the skill set to an employee at work. They're not going to leave that skill at work, at their office, at their desk. They're going to take that skill set with. So they're going to be able to de-escalate it in their home. They're going to be able to share those skills with their family members. They're going to be able to take it in the communities which they move within. I mean, it sounds corny, but this is the effort to make the world safer, not just the workplace. Although this is where I'm getting my foot in the door.

Phil Wagner

No, I think that's great. And again, I know we can get catastrophic in our present realities. I know the world has always been a complicated place, but my gosh, look no further than the past three to five years and all that we've experienced in the realm of violence nationally, locally, globally. So I think this is the perfect space for your work to come in and drive impact and change. One more question for you. As this episode plays out over DV Awareness Month, and we speak directly to victims and survivors or particularly their supervisors, I'm wondering, since so much of your work is in this area, can you speak directly to leaders and managers providing insight on what they might do in the here and now? Right here? Step one to begin to be more mindful of creating organizational environments where maybe victims and survivors can thrive, but just workplace environments that are safer, happier, healthier. Any insights for leaders and managers as we conclude today?

Arlene Limas

Be engaged, be kind. You know, I mean, lead by example. It sounds corny. Grandmaster Jhoon Rhee put it in his student creed. He's the father of American Taekwondo might for right. How do we lead by example? These are just easy things. And yes, it can have an impact from top down. So I think that's important. Having leaders that engage with their employees and with their workforce and how they engage with their workforce, leading by example, doing what you can to create an empathetic outreach is really important.

Phil Wagner

That's so powerful. This has been a great conversation of all I know of Taekwondo. I know that very much. It is about the art or way of doing something, and I'm so thankful for the art that you're bringing into this, the thoughtfulness you're bringing to this, how you're changing the way that we are thinking and being about the business of the world of work. So, Arlene, my friend, thank you for your insights. Thank you for all you do. Quick final question. What can our listeners do to support you or to continue to contribute to you and PAVE and the great work that you're doing?

Arlene Limas

I mean, please, first and foremost, any opportunity like this where I can share what we're doing, give us a ring, shoot me an email, I will be there. So anytime, I think that this is my strength to be able to share ideas this way, so I'd like to take advantage of that. So anyone who puts me would care to listen, I will talk to them. And second, if this fits into your scope, if you know a boss or if you know an HR professional, or if you know a company that is ready to take this step in this innovative approach, please reach out. We'd love to hear from them. I have my own podcast, Disrupting the Dominoes. You can subscribe to that. We have some fantastic guests on that. It has been a really fun thing for me to engage in. We have a newsletter, so, yeah, we'd love for you to be a part of what we're doing.

Phil Wagner

Awesome. Well, listeners, thank you for tuning into our episode today with Arlene Limas, again, one of the greatest Taekwondo athletes. I know, her bio says of the 20th century, but I'm just going to say of all time, truly building a legacy far beyond the Olympics, far beyond just one dimension. I still appreciate the work you do. Thank you for being here today.

Arlene Limas

Thank you, Phil.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• How Leslie helps inform people about the services at the Avalon Center
• How we should talk about domestic violence
• The distinction between victim and survivor
• What percentage of the population have reported violence by an intimate partner
• How children can be influenced by domestic violence at home
• Why domestic violence and intimate partner violence is a workplace issue
• What domestic violence looks like when it shows up at work
• Are there workplace protections for victims of domestic violence
• What are the options for male victims of intimate partner violence
• What should managers do and not do in regards to domestic violence victim employees

Transcript

Leslie Jingluski

And the reality is you can bury your head in the sand if you want to, but it is, in fact, a workplace issue.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Domestic Violence Awareness Month was launched nationwide in October of 1987, and in the last 30 some years, so much progress has been made. Yet domestic violence, sexual violence, violence against women, men, children, intimate partner violence all of those continue to exist. Today we're recording this special episode to kick off October Domestic Violence Awareness Month to ensure that our collective approach to supporting victims and survivors models current best practices. This is a diversity and inclusion issue. Now, just a warning, we won't provide traumatic details, but we will, of course, be talking about domestic violence and sexual violence over the next few minutes. So please take care of yourselves. Feel free to tune out and come back next time if these are trauma-inducing topics. We will, of course, also discuss resources for those of you who might be listening and navigating a similar life circumstance. Remember that you're not alone. Your story matters, and there's hope. I'm joined today by my friend and my colleague, Leslie Jingluski. Leslie has a vast background in victim and survivor advocacy. She's currently the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Avalon Center right here in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Phil Wagner

Leslie, thanks for taking time during this very busy season to come onto our podcast and to share with our listeners. It's such a pleasure to speak with you here.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, thank you, guys. I appreciate you having me. It's just such an honor to have conversations with you. It really is.

Phil Wagner

Thank you. We've partnered on a few things in the past. So I'm excited for a conversation today. Why don't you kick things off by telling our listeners a little bit more about who you are, what you do at Avalon, and maybe even how you found your way into this work?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, so I have been with Avalon for about five years. My title just changed, actually. So I am now Director of Community Engagement.

Phil Wagner

Congratulations. And so well deserved. So well.

Leslie Jingluski

I appreciate you. Yeah, Avalon is great. The honor is always on my side with Avalon. So my job is really to make sure the community kind of understands what services that Avalon offers. It's my job to do a lot of the public speaking events, local media, things like this. It's an effort to educate the community on domestic violence, sexual assault, all those things. And as far as how I got into it. So my husband and I have owned a restaurant for 20 years, right? And what we learned very early, working together, that our marriage, it wasn't sustainable for us to work together. Two bosses together. So I kind of took a backseat and did my thing. He kind of did the day-to-day operations. But one of the things that we observed really early was how prevalent domestic violence was in the industry. It's crazy. Like, aside from the emotional toll, we saw the economic impact on the community. I started kind of reading to educate myself because we were dealing with staff issues. Honestly, no amount of education at that time, and I'm dating myself, but we really didn't talk about it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

And I'm sure I think you're a bit younger than me, but you kind of feel that a little bit, too, where this is a new topic of conversation.

Phil Wagner

Particularly in this space, right? Even as we talk about DEI work at large, I don't know that this is something we naturally funnel into that conversation, but as you and I have chatted, we absolutely should. We need to for these reasons. This is going to bubble up in your organization, likely, no matter what industry. It's not just hospitality. Right. This happens at work. We have great data to support that. And so I appreciate you being here today and sharing a little bit about that story. And you know what? You actually tee us up well for where I want to go first because you use language, and I use language, and we're putting all these terms out into the landscape. We're going to explore a variety of different concepts over the next little bit. Can you help us sort out language here? I mean, I'm curious. Do we say, victims? Do we say, survivors? Do we call this domestic and sexual violence? Do we call this intimate partner? Are there best practices on terminology that maybe we should be aware of?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, I think best practices is tough, but I think that there's a place for all of those terminology. I think there's a place for it, and I'm glad you brought it up because it's kind of something that I'm passionate about. And traditionally, the term domestic violence it's been used a lot. But I think as a society, we're kind of evolving. So while that's still perfectly acceptable term, I think we've kind of moved over to intimate partner violence. And that's because what we know is we know that this kind of violence doesn't discriminate. We see the aftermath. It doesn't discriminate with age or race or sexual orientation, or economic status. It doesn't matter. So I think we've kind of moved towards what used to be a picture of a husband and wife and move to more intimate partner because we know, gosh, you can go back to teen dating violence. It starts.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, of course.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. And then the victim-survivor.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. It's so complicated, right? I've been in this work for years. I've done some of this all the way back to my grad school days, and I don't know that I have a clear understanding of which I often use them together, so I cover them both. What do you do?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, so I think victim has its place in the conversation, but I think victim kind of goes more towards the legal part of it because if you're a victim, we frequently use that term in the courtroom. It kind of has its place in the legal terms. It's frequently used in court. It's usually described when someone who's been subject to a crime, and then it comes with rights under the law.

Phil Wagner

Okay.

Leslie Jingluski

Because if you're a victim, that kind of changes things a little bit. But I think when it comes to my world and what you world? I really like the term survivor. It's a term of empowerment. Right. If somebody looks at themselves as survivor rather than a victim, then that kind of means they've moved on the path to healing. And I think that's important. And that's an important mindset when you're healing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think in these context, this is such a dignity violation that plays out.

Leslie Jingluski

Yes.

Phil Wagner

So maybe it's about listening in the moment to the language that that person who has walked that experience uses. And I, too, I really like the survivor framework here if it feels appropriate, particularly for the person who has walked through it.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. Until you've walked through it, you can't know. And I think that's also that can be a whole other conversation, but I think you kind of have to put yourself in those shoes, and there's programs out there that can help with that.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So as we kick off Domestic Violence Awareness Month, are you able to give us a snapshot on sort of where we and I use that very largely, like, collectively as a nation or a global community or whatever that makes sense to you, to sort of frame? Where are we on the sort of the prevalence rates of these acts, domestic and sexual violence? We've come so far in terms of gender equity, right? We've seen great strides and improvement in the landscape of gender equity. Have we made the same strides in violence against women? And again, there's another term that I use, and I often go back to, but of course, we know this goes beyond gender, too, but give us a snapshot on where we are currently.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. So that's really tough, too, because then you've got to evaluate the question. We know statistically, one in four women and one in seven men experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner in some time in their lifetime. Personally, I kind of think that number is higher, especially with men, because men aren't going to come out come forward.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, of course.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, exactly. But to answer your question, of course, we have made absolute strides, but I think, well, statistically, we're down 60%.

Phil Wagner

From when? From the last 30 years?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah.

Phil Wagner

Okay.

Leslie Jingluski

So let's talk about that because if we, as a society. What is intimate partner violence? So I think if you ask a lot of our survivors when they first walk into our doors or when they first make that phone call, are you a victim of domestic violence or have you experienced I would say a lot of them say, you know what, he's never hit me, so no. And I say he or she. So I think that we need to dive into that type of intimate partner violence. What does it include? We need to talk about financial and social isolation. We talked about mental abuse because how do you prove that? I mean, that's an argument in court that's been going on forever. How do you know?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, there's no bruise. Like, there's no physical bruise, right?

Leslie Jingluski

No.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

No. So how do you argue that and then secondary abuse when you're dealing with kids and that cycle and what they're seeing, they might not be a direct victim, but they're secondary. It's what they're seeing. It's what their brain is learning. And so I think that generational learned behavior is probably a conversation that we need to dive into. It's tough. I use this example a lot with people because I think it's relative, but I think we've all said at one point in time, I'm never going to say the things that my parents said. And it's even a commercial out, like, don't turn into your father, those kind of things. And I have three teenagers at home, and I can be perfectly honest when I say when they stress me out or when things get tense, my mother comes out of my mouth.

Phil Wagner

Oh, me too.

Leslie Jingluski

Oh my gosh. She comes out. It's like she's here and with me. It's nothing bad, but it's just those things that kind of you've known all your life, and the beginning of a relationship isn't stressful. Right? It's awesome. It's the butterflies. It's learning. And I don't think any abuser wakes up with intentional abuse plans.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

I think it's actually the opposite. So I think to answer your question, to kind of circle back to where we started from, I think, yes, we've made strides, but we have so far to go.

Phil Wagner

And so are you talking about then like a pattern? I'm thinking about because you mention kids. Are you thinking like, I'm not going to say the things my mother says, but they come out of me. And so from the perspective then of, like, children watch this play out, and so then they embody those violent behaviors to sort of normalize or normal reactions?

Leslie Jingluski

I think so, yes. And there's data to support that.

Phil Wagner

Sure, sure.

Leslie Jingluski

Not just my opinion, but statistically, what they've experienced. Most abusers have experienced that same type of violence. And in fact, my organization does not dive into abuser training and help, but there are places out there and what they will tell you, what an abuser will tell you, is, I never wanted to do this, but stress came in, and all of these things came in, not an excuse.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

But until how do you measure prevention? It's really tough measuring something that can't happen.

Phil Wagner

And we've got another episode releasing in tandem later this month on this theme as well with Natalie Hoskins, a Middle Tennessee State University who works with perpetrators of violence against women.

Leslie Jingluski

I went to Middle Tennessee. I love that!

Phil Wagner

Oh yeah, full circle. So I think that's an important point and caveat as well. Okay, so let's take this back into the world of work. Right. I think that many leaders and managers would say, look, I am so empathetic to this, and I'm so sorry this is happening, but there's a line between what happens at home and what happens at work. So can you, Leslie, tell us why this is a workplace issue? Like, this is something that we must necessarily think about in the context of organizations in the world of work. Right?

Leslie Jingluski

Right. And the reality is you can bury your head in the sand if you want to, but it is, in fact, a workplace issue. There's lots of ways that these intersect, but it boils down to productivity, employee morale. I mean, the list goes on and on. And I understand it from both perspectives. Right. My MBA is screaming productivity. We've got it. But then the other piece is, how do you achieve that productivity? And I think it's by the total package. The moral ramifications are huge, but the only expert in the survivor's life is really that survivor. So I think it's important for a company or an agency or wherever it is to remember that empowerment is key, and your investment in your employees is going to be the most important investment that you're going to make.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

There's arguments, of course, either way, but the employment issue, I feel very passionately about this, obviously, but I just feel like if somebody's in an abusive relationship, it is going to affect the workplace.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Leslie Jingluski

It's just going to.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I agree with you. I think sometimes the workplace is the only place where people feel fully safe or comfortable seeking support. Coworkers can be allies. HR institutions, policies, and procedures can be good conduits for information on law, local support systems. Work can be a retreat where it can be empowering. And so I think the lines are not well drawn. I think that this certainly bleeds over. Your employees who are in an abusive situation do not have the luxury of clocking in nine to five, and all of a sudden, we forget right that this follows into the workplace.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, it absolutely does. And I think how you handle it as an employer is tough because there are so many variables, and they don't all look the same. They just don't. But I think the policy on that, I believe, needs to be a case-by-case basis.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Well, you say they don't all look the same. Let's talk a little bit. Our audience is laser-focused in on diversity issues at work. What does domestic violence look like when it shows up for work? We've already talked to it sometimes. Of course, we have those mental models, those visual images of the battered woman trope, right? But this goes beyond that. What does it look like? How does it manifest? How would we know it when we see it to even intervene?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. So we have hundreds of years of instinct, first of all, that I think we as a society love to just close down sometimes, but Hollywood will have you believe that it's sunglasses and hats and bruises, and that's not what it looks like. And the reality is abuse looks really different. Coping responses for people are different. I spoke to a survivor one time, and she said, kind of as I went through the healing process, I learned so much. I learned a lot of things that I considered personality flaws were actually coping strategies that I had developed over time. And I found that so interesting because you look at the rate of absenteeism, and I think that you brought this point up, you look at worker fatigue, and most of the time, I think abuse is actually disguised very well. Some people in the workforce, and I'm sure you've come across these people who, are just fantastic at understanding an emotional response. And a lot of times, they end up in sales. Right. Because they can kind of cater, and you can respond to a colleague with these emotions, the emotional response, that will kind of get you on the same level. And I had someone give me a really interesting perspective one time on that, and he said, have you ever met somebody that could read the mood of everyone in the room as soon as they entered? And I said, Gosh. Yes. I love people because they're so easy to talk to. And he said It can actually be persuasive. It can be almost manipulative, right? And he said, have you ever thought about the fact that those traits and a lot of people describe them as empaths, but those traits have actually been survival strategies in the past? It really made me think because I was like, well, if you are as a child or as a spouse or as a girlfriend or boyfriend, have to constantly read the room and as a survival mechanism, be able to understand the mood in order to respond with the least amount of confrontation. That's just a very small example of how sometimes, now is, everybody that's good at that a victim of abuse. No, of course not. That's silly. But I think it opens your mind into the way that you think abuse looks.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and the cognitive burden. Can you imagine processing all of those details, constantly going through that safety evaluative cycle, every single opportunity? Am I safe here? Am I safe here? Am I safe here? And I'm glad you teed up to some of those things. I think talk therapy. Cognitive behavior therapy would tell us that a lot of the quirks that we observe in ourselves, those personality characteristics oftentimes not all the time, but many times can be mapped back to like a trauma response. Right. So this trauma-informed intervention, I think, cannot be overstated, particularly as it applies to our DEI strategy.

Leslie Jingluski

Absolutely, 100%.

Phil Wagner

So I want to be very cautious here because I know that you cannot give legal advice, and I do not want to paint the picture that every single situation looks the same. We know that it doesn't. That's very clear. But to be helpful, I'm wondering if you might be able to do a little bit of a back and forth with me on just sort of what do you do if. What do you do if you're in the world of work and you see this playing out? We know. I think it's says about 65% of employers don't have any plan at all in place for how to respond to domestic violence. So I'm wondering if we can do some high-level insights from your perspective on what do you do if you're a victim and survivor, what do you do if you're an employer, and what do you do if you're a colleague. So let's just see where this takes us. And again, this is not legal advice. I want to clarify that. But just

Leslie Jingluski

Thank you.

Phil Wagner

In general, I know we have to be mindful, but I think some people just have you don't know what you don't know. And so what are some first steps in primary thinking? So let's go first with the survivor here. Victim, survivor, someone who is experiencing this. What do you do if you are experiencing violence, intimate partner violence, something in this space, and you're afraid of getting fired, right? I mean, is it possible to get fired? Are there protections in place that you know of for victims or survivors in the workplace?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, so it's tough, specifically in Virginia, right? We're an at-will state to answer your question. I don't have a definitive answer for that question because let's be real honest. As an employer, I can come up with any reason that I want to; To dismiss an employee. And so you can argue health-related issues, you can argue whatever those things are and depending on the size of the company. So I always kind of say as a first line of defense, communication is so important.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I want to talk about that too. But yeah, I agree with you.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. I just feel like communicating with your manager, communicating with the owner, depending on the size of the company, just having that open conversation, which that can be so tough, right?

Phil Wagner

So vulnerable.

Leslie Jingluski

Oh my gosh, you are. And that's one of the biggest things. That's one of the biggest things. So I would encourage somebody who is dealing with that to get a hold of your local agency. And there's a lot of agencies out there, Avalon being one of them, in the Williamsburg and Middle Peninsula area, but the majority of them have legal advocates who can kind of talk you through this process and just get a game plan. And I can speak for Avalon, and the majority of these agencies are 100% confidential. So that vulnerability that you're going to feel is kind of the burden is a little less because you can talk to somebody that you know the conversation is going to stay right there and kind of develop a plan.

Phil Wagner

And this can happen at any point in time, right? I know that there are shelter services that come along in many scenarios, but you don't have to wait until you need shelter services to get connected to your local agency.

Leslie Jingluski

Oh, my gosh, no. And I will tell you that it takes an average of seven times to leave for good. And I think that's really important. I think that's important for people to understand. And I think it's important you may not be ready to leave. And you know what? Let's talk about that, too, just real quick. Leaving can be very dangerous.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So the things we don't say when we are a colleague, which we'll talk about a little bit, go back to that. Why don't you just leave and we'll talk about that a little bit. I want to be sensitive. Again, we want to be very clear that we know one in four women, right? We cite that statistic. This overwhelmingly impacts women. But I want to be sensitive to Trans folks and also to male victims here as well. What if you're in a local community and your community has resources, but they're only for women? What do you do if you're a male victim in that scenario?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, it's really tough. Fortunately, at Avalon, we do service both men and women. And I think that that's becoming a smaller and smaller concern across the board.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I would agree with you.

Leslie Jingluski

But there is a national hotline. I don't have that number, but I'm sure.

Phil Wagner

We can link it in the show notes. We'll link it in the show notes.

Leslie Jingluski

Absolutely. But there is a hotline out there that you can call, and it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365. And I think that's a good place to start because, especially in the smaller communities, even if it's a woman and you're dealing with that when you're in a small community and somebody who lives in a very small community, you drive up to a place called Avalon, the rumor mill is real. It's tough. Unfortunately, you're dealing with the sheriff who may answer the call because everybody's like, Why don't you just leave? Well, that sheriff that answered the call. It's very possible went to high school with you guys.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

It just makes it tough.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

So pulling in that outside agency oftentimes is really helpful.

Phil Wagner

No, I appreciate that. Okay, so another scenario. What do you do if you find yourself in an abusive scenario relationship, and you need to take time off of work to deal with family issues, go to court, deal with this situation, but face obstacles? You mentioned communication with your employer. Sometimes those aren't always easy conversations when you're trying to negotiate time off to tend to these issues. Any advice to victims or survivors on how to go about having those conversations?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. Again, it is one thing that I want a survivor to know, no matter what. And especially, again, we're back to the small community makes it tough. The way that you feel is valid, and I think that you need to remember that. There's a lot of shame involved. It shouldn't be, but there is. There's a lot of shame involved in these conversations. And I know I wish I had a solid answer for you because if we're being honest, I don't, because human personality is involved, and that makes it different, that makes it difficult. Your boss or your manager, supervisor, owner, whoever, I think many times will react in a trauma in a traumatic way. So I get that you need to be careful on how you're wording it. And that's why I always say with these things, talk to an advocate, get somebody on the phone before you have these conversations. Come up with a game plan. Sort it out in your head.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

Sort the conversation out in your head before you have it because nine times out of ten, I have to believe that your employer is going to work with you. I really do. And is that naive? Maybe a little bit, if we're being honest. But if that communication door is open and it's done in the correct way, you need to have those conversations.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. And I love the advice of getting an advocate, a local advocate, involved because there may be partnerships that exist between your organization and that advocacy source that you may not even be fully aware. Maybe they're not well-advertised, but they might be able to help you navigate that a little bit. I think that's a safe bet always to always work with your local folks. For sure.

Leslie Jingluski

Absolutely. That's why we're here. That's why we have trained so many hours and hours of training to be able to help you navigate the system because it's tough.

Phil Wagner

It's a tough system. All right, so one more for victim-survivors here. What if you need to quit your job because you have ongoing issues with abuse? You fear that the perpetrator is going to enter your workplace and cause violence to other people or just some other reason because this is complicated. If that happens to you, are you eligible for unemployment? How do you seek out support? What do you do in that scenario?

Leslie Jingluski

Yes. Well, I think people will be very surprised to learn the resources available to domestic violence survivors. I think that again, and I feel like we're beating a dead horse on this, but going back to your local agency, whether it be Middlesex County, Williamsburg, James City, all of those places, they work with the Department of Social Services. Now, you are, again, not legal advice. You are always, always encouraged in a situation like that to file for unemployment. It is up to a case-by-case basis. They're going to go through these things. It's going to depend on what your employer does. So the outcome of those cases, you can always file. Absolutely file, and you'll either be accepted or denied. But I think what is important to learn here is that there are a lot more resources available in your jurisdiction than you know. And so working with somebody who can get you access to those. At Avalon, we have situations where we'll cover your rent if you qualify for those things. It's huge. It's huge. And everybody thinks communal shelter, but there are other options. There are so many other options, and that's our job to let you know what they are.

Phil Wagner

Now, you mentioned confidentiality, and when I call into a service like Avalon, I can bet most of the time, it's going to be 100% confidential. Should I assume the same thing when I'm talking to my employer?

Leslie Jingluski

Absolutely not. And I'm being very honest. I think we would hope that.

Phil Wagner

We would hope it.

Leslie Jingluski

I think we would all hope that. But I think that is a concern. It should always be a concern. Your safety and coming from a business side, we can't ignore the business side of it. We can't ignore the disruption and the economic impact of domestic violence. It just is. So I think it's which is why, you know, I circle back to prevention. We've got to. We've got to get in there. We've got to stop.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely. Yeah. So I think maybe some of the lessons learned are to know your organization's policies and procedures. Sometimes it can be something as simple as an ombuds person that might exist as a neutral source of support to help you navigate. Working with human resources. Again, not always 100% confidential, but because of the nature of other accommodations that are made on the job, maybe a source there. But read the room. Make sure that you carefully work with your advocate locally before proceeding, just so that you have as many protections in place as possible.

Leslie Jingluski

Absolutely. And it's tough, and it's okay to be scared. I think a lot of times we paint this picture of, along with being a survivor, there's this expectation that everything just bounces off and you're tough, and you're running through, but it's okay also to be vulnerable. It's okay to need help. This is not your fault. It is circumstantial, and it's the way that it is. And so sometimes that first phone call just to be able to an advocate, to be able to just kind of narrow the field, so it's so much less overwhelming. And making that phone call doesn't mean I have to leave.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, absolutely.

Leslie Jingluski

It doesn't.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely. Okay, so let's switch. Let's move into the lens of the employer, the manager, the leader. What do you do if you're that person and an employee comes to you and reveals there in a situation of intimate partner violence or domestic violence? Do you have any recommendations on best practices for how they should respond? Maybe things that we should or I just absolutely should not do?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah, so I think when you're dealing with domestic violence is a control issue, right? At home or wherever they're experiencing the violence, that person is in control, whether it be mentally, financially. Sometimes there's children involved. Sometimes, there's pets involved. Right. So these are all situations that you need to be actively thinking about. And I think the first thing is to establish a trust with that person. Always have those resources. I think good policy is to have these resources to know where your agency is. Many times they will come in there. I'll come in and talk to staff free of charge at any time. Love to do it. I feel like having those but also validate that survivor's feelings. It is so very important to validate and let them know how you're feeling is okay because intention is important. So trust them. Never ever lead. Never ever judge. Never ever. Well, why don't you just leave? Yeah, that's a whole conversation. But leave her or him in control.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

They need that control. They need that space. They need that empowerment to navigate this process on their own terms. So I think it's important to remember that power and control.

Phil Wagner

I know you partner with survivors on strategizing with local employers on what employers might call upon to be able to best support. Are there things you can share what might be helpful, like things like flexible work arrangements or, like, time off? Can you call upon FMLA, like any policy or procedure frameworks, that employers might look to support survivors?

Leslie Jingluski

I think so. I think, in my opinion, policy don't write policy to have policy. Right. Leave yourself some room for every different situation.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Case by case.

Leslie Jingluski

Yes, absolutely. Because it is different, every situation is different. And I think that's very, very important. Leave policy. I just feel like when you say human resources, it's kind of like a case manager, right? How are we going to deal with this? How are we going to move forward? And what do you need from me to make this happen, to make you a productive employee, to keep you safe? What do you need from me? And let's start there. Let's start the conversation with what can I do for you.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's powerful. Okay, so one more. I want to talk from the lens of a colleague. You come into my classes regularly, and you work with very advocacy-minded, diversity, equity, and inclusion-oriented leaders and colleagues. And you ask them in that scenario like, well, what would you do in this situation? And so many of them are like. I got to go right to HR, right? Like, somebody tells me they're in a violent situation, I got to help them fix this. And we see where that comes from. But I'm wondering if you can walk us back from maybe that gut instinct. What do you do if you're at work, a colleague comes to you and reveals in a moment of trust and vulnerability that they're in a situation of intimate partner violence or domestic violence? What are some of the best practices and things we should maybe watch out for or not do in that scenario?

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. So again, and I hammer this nail constantly, you need to leave is a big no-no, right? You need to leave. Why are you going to tolerate that? You're better than that. The reality is that survivor knows that, but it's more complex than that. If an abuser was abusive all the time, it wouldn't work. It would not work. And we can follow back that. And I think it's important for you to understand that. Understand that he might have been abusive yesterday. Today, when he says he's sorry, he means it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. There's flowers on the table this morning.

Leslie Jingluski

Absolutely. And it's genuine. Don't get me wrong. It's not an excuse, but it is absolutely genuine. So in a fit of everything falling apart, that abuser is in desperation, doing everything that he or she can do to pull it back together because whether it's admitted or not, that abuser knows they messed up. They know it was inappropriate, and it wasn't intentional.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

So we discount love a lot, and I don't think we should. So validating the way that they're feeling, but also validating the fact that I'm not going to leave. There's too much at stake here. I've got kids involved. I have all of these things involved, and I think do not violate that person's trust. They came to you. They're trusting you. And understanding how difficult it is to make that admission to somebody is really important. Believe them. You have to. And I think, as a society, sometimes it's real quick to run to the water cooler, and with an eye roll, I just heard from so and so. You wouldn't believe this. It's toxic.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

And I think in any action that you make, you need to look at the situation and say, what is going to be an outcome of my action here?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Leslie Jingluski

And if it's not productive, we don't do it.

Phil Wagner

But, Leslie, I work with a woman who is impacted. Don't I have to report? Am I not legally obligated to report? Help me here. What do I do?

Leslie Jingluski

No, you are not. And even as a mandated reporter, if it's not of imminent danger or imminent danger to a child, no, it doesn't. Understand how dangerous that can be. Understand the response, especially if you're dealing with someone who may be fearful of law enforcement as it is.

Phil Wagner

Oh, yeah. I mean, we could unpack that for some time, right? There are multiple. Okay. Yeah, I buy it.

Leslie Jingluski

Yeah. So I think it's tough, but I think if you go against what that person needs, and clearly if they have spoken to you, they need it, then all you have done is pushed them back into a corner where they've lost control again. And it's not productive. It's not moving them forward. It's not empowering them to do things that they need to do. So I think trust and establishing a relationship, that's trust, and then understand that tomorrow she or he may come in love again, and everything is roses and flowers and wonderful. And then next week, there may be another issue. In my opinion, the most important thing that you need to do is to trust that they can still come to talk to you. Because if every time they come to talk to you about these situations and unpack the way that they're feeling, your responses I told you last week, why are you still with them? Why are you still doing this? If you're doing that, eventually, they're going to stop talking to you, and eventually, they're going to cover up more because of the shame. So I think trust and validation are so very important and power. Let them have the power.

Phil Wagner

Let them have the power. Yeah, I think that's such good advice. And again, we've seen this play out with students and how that's a different type of thinking. It requires a different frame of reference than what we might see play out in media or what might be gut instinct. But I think it goes back to support and empowering and giving that power and control back. I have one final question for you today, as a final question. We're at the height of a month of remembrance, of reckoning, of holding space, and I'm wondering if you and your capacity might just simply speak to those who are listening, who have experienced or know of those experiencing domestic violence, sexual violence, intimate partner violence in the season of their life. Can you offer them any words of encouragement or advice, or support?

Leslie Jingluski

You know, I think one of the best things is that you're not alone. I think you need to remember that and understand again that everything you're feeling is valid and things that you know, it's hard to tell somebody when they're having a conversation about something that happened, and then you start talking it out and you think, well, it really wasn't that bad. But that's not the case because if you're feeling that way, that's a valid feeling. We have hundreds of years of instinct that are there to protect us and to keep us safe, and we don't need to argue that. But you're not alone. There are people out there calling a hotline is not the first step to leaving, and I think people need to understand that and understand that at Avalon and I can speak for Avalon alone, but if you leave and you go back to your abuser, are we sad? A little bit, yes. But I understand, also. I'm not in control of this. You are. So it's okay. And maybe you call me, or maybe we do a remote counseling session, and we talk about safety planning, and we talk about what you need to get through this, what you need to survive this. And if it's not leaving, then it's not leaving. That's your decision. Nobody else's.

Phil Wagner

So powerful. I so appreciate you and the work that you do. It holds a very special place in my heart. It is so meaningful. I know that it's incredibly difficult to do, and you're so passionate about raising awareness for this issue. We know that prevention is a very critically important part of this, too. So thank you for bringing some of that prevention framework here on our podcast. To those listening, I hope that you'll begin, if you haven't already, to factor these issues under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion work. This impacts organizations. This impacts organizational culture. This impacts employees because it impacts people. So thank you, Leslie, for coming to share with us today.

Leslie Jingluski

Take care.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• Why Alma decided to reclaim the term chingona
• What separates chingona from other reclaimed terms
• The best way marginalized communities can show up and lead with their full self
• How managers and leaders can create better spaces for minority communities
• What the role of space and place play in one's overall self narrative
• How Alma found herself an agitator when challenging the norms
• What the difference is between safe spaces and brave spaces
• What is the reclaimed way to bring your full and authentic self to work

Transcript

Phil Wagner

Hey, friends. Welcome to another episode. Just a quick warning before we jump in. Today's episode contains some adult language which we have not edited out. So if you're listening with littles or you just want to tune out for today, come on back next time. We're excited to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month with today's guest, Alma Zaragoza-Petty. Get ready; you're in for a great listen. Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun.

Phil Wagner

Welcome, listeners, to another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Today I'm joined by Alma Zaragoza-Petty, who is a Mexicana social justice advocate and scholar who teaches equity to create change. Gosh, I love that so much. Alma was born in LA but raised in Acapulco, Mexico, for much of her childhood. She's the daughter of immigrant parents, a FirstGen high school and college graduate. She's got a master's degree in counseling, a doctorate in education, and she's worked in higher education for more than 20 years. She has served as an academic advisor, as a professor, and in research and evaluation for a non-profit organization. She's the co-founder of Prickly Pair Collective, a trauma-informed faith-based community organization, and co-host of the Red Couch Podcast. Go check out her podcast with her partner, hip-hop artist Propaganda. Alma, I'm really excited to welcome you here, and I want to talk a little bit more about that background, but I also want to talk about a new book. It's coming out. I've got it in my hands. It's got your name on it. So to kick things off, would you mind just telling our listeners a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and the exciting work that you're about to release out into the world?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Sure. Yes. So, again, my name is Alma Zaragoza-Petty. Most people call me Alma, the Doc. I don't really like fancy titles, and yet I got one, and I've had to learn how to what does that mean? What does that mean in terms of power dynamics? In terms of just wanting to still remain sort of humble to my beginning, which you've kind of laid out a little bit. And so I let my students call me Alma or Doc ZP or the Doc.

Phil Wagner

I'm with you. Right. Equity-minded professionals, you got to normalize those power imbalances just sort of falling by the wayside. We're just people first and foremost, right?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so these days, I'm planning my book launch. So my book launch will be November 5th in the LA area in Lincoln Heights. It will be a free event. You can also pick up a copy of my book. You can also have a VIP experience where I'll be talking a little bit more about the writing process, but I'm super excited because it's basically an opportunity for me to redo my quinceanera, which really sucked.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Okay. All right, so tell us about your book. Tell us title and where we can pick it up once it comes out. And then I really do want to delve in and talk about what you've written here and how you have fleshed out the whole process of really reclaiming. You've already teed that up here, but I think that's such a significant theme. So I want to dig deeper. But tell us a little bit more about the book.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah. So the book Chingona Owning Your Inner Battles for Healing and Justice really came out of my own personal journey of finding out what equity meant for me, what it meant to live authentically as a Latina. But that works with just a diverse group of people, and that loves different cultures and that wants to learn from others as well and really trying to understand and write a story for someone who is going through some hard, messy, chaotic times in their lives. Both as professionally, personally, and that care about this topic of equity. That was really my intention behind it. And I like to say that I was writing it for, like, 20-30-year-old me who wish she had madrina, that knew how to navigate her through life and these questions. That was a little hard. When you're first generation to a country, you can't really rely on your parents for the lowdown on stuff like that.

Phil Wagner

So it's always exciting to me when I get advanced reader copies. I still see that as such an honor. So I got one. Number one, the artwork is incredible. Number two, I love the title. So it's Chingona Owning Your Inner. I'll say BA because my mother listens. So owning your inner BA for healing and justice. Now, I know BA is one of those cheeky terms. It doesn't always resonate with everybody, but forgive my ignorance with the last name Wagner. You probably know, like, Spanish isn't my first language here. Isn't Chingona kind of like a vulgar term in most contexts too? Talk to us a little bit about that word and your reclaiming of it. There's such power in reclaiming, but I want to hear how you got there and how you decided to really lead with that and embrace your inner Chingona.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah, it definitely is. The Latino community, or the Latinx community, I should say, is very diverse. Right. There's a lot of heterogeneity in the population, and depending on which context you're in, it's a little bit more vulgar than other contexts. I grew up hearing this word. I grew up not in the nicest way it was meant to be derogatory. Kind of like son of a ABs. I'm kind of following your cues of not cussing as much.

Phil Wagner

No, this is an open pocket. No, my mom can hang. There's a good host of people who've come before you who have really set the bar. You can go wherever you want to, my friend.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah. So essentially, it really depends which context you're in. I would say that in the early eighties, nineties, which is when I grew up, most of my development happened as a kid and teenager. This was not what it means now. I think now, in the ethos of folks that are Latinx in background, it really is like a positive reclaimed term that we call each other, that we call things we do, that we call almost about anything. It could be a verb and adjective. Whatever it is, we just totally have reclaimed it. But when I was growing up, this was something that was tossed around, meant to kind of put people like me, quote-unquote, in my place, usually by people that looks like me. And so it was really a word to just kind of calm down, stop being this really too much of a woman, taking up space, let the men lead, kind of fall back. And for me, it really became like this genderized term that I, as a kid questioned a lot and was really impacted by it.

Phil Wagner

So when I read the first time, I think I made the parallel to a word like queer, which is also one of those similar terms that has been reclaimed by members of the LGBTQ plus community. But you speak of this term more as it was used to create power structures within the community that you were within. Is that more of an appropriate, so this is a little bit different than how we might think about other reclaimed terms?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah, I like to actually compare it to the word cunt. I feel weird saying it out loud now, but it's kind of vulgar. It kind of could mean nothing if you, like, take it out of context to some folks. And I think that's what Chingona does for a lot of Latino populations. Like, for some Latinos, it's like, what that's such a common word, like shit, like, it's fine, you know. For others, it's like, whoa, that's really not okay to say that word. It's very vulgar. Too out there. And so I hate to speak for everyone, but in my experience and my family dynamics, it was not a reclaimed word. It was a word to kind of calm me down and sit me down and kind of get me to listen, basically.

Phil Wagner

No, that's super helpful and super interesting. So one of the things I love is you're very clear you're trying to push people outside of their comfort zones here, and you do so with great intentionality and with great framing. As I read your book, I was so struck by the central role of storytelling. So often, you bring your story and stories back to what you call, and you said it earlier, right? Your hard, messy, chaotic narrative. In chapter two, you open, you reflect on an interview question we hear all the time. I don't know if you remember this, but you talk about tell me about a time you failed at something and how you handle it. And you note that you had this unrelenting pressure to be your best, quote-unquote, white professional self, and you gave a neatly folded, kind of happy ending answer. I'm wondering what advice you might have for folks out there, particularly black and brown women, as I know you speak directly to them, I should say, throughout your work, about how you give yourself permission to own and maybe even lead with that complicated, messy, chaotic narrative.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah, I think that a lot of this has to do with the environment that you're in, right? There's like certain cultures and DEI work, diversity, equity, inclusion work in organizations that has been done, that has laid down the work for other people to come into those spaces and really question and really be curious about even maybe the questions that are being asked or the ways that you're being asked to show up. And so if I were to give someone advice, I would say only within this context am I giving this advice. Because I also recognize that there's a lot of context where it's not safe to show up as your full self. It's not safe to you need to figure out how to show up as your best white professional self and figure out quickly if that's the kind of environment that you're willing to kind of grow with, grow on.

Phil Wagner

That's such a good point.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

If not, find another direction or whatever. But within that context, I think that it is okay to let some of our experiences lead the reason why we're even interested in some of the work that we do. For me, that has been, I think, the main sort of throughline in my work. It's been me kind of finding out what is equity mean, for instance. That was a question that I was plagued with. And I talked about it in my book very early on because of the different representations that I saw. Living in a predominantly immigrant Latinx community but being bused into a predominantly black community. I had to really question for myself. For instance. What it meant to see black people represented the way they were in television and through like Spanish syndicated television and the way that I heard my family talk about this versus the teachers that were also predominantly black at the school that I went to. And the way that they asked me to kind of peel back the layers of who's telling the story? Why are they telling the story? What purpose does it serve? Who is it serving? All of those questions. And because of that seed that was planted in me so early, I think that's how I've navigated my life in terms of just leading that curiosity kind of lead me and eventually kind of finding a place where I could bring that whole self, that whole how I view the world into this space, into my workspace. And it's a value-added because other folks who haven't had that experience are now thinking about things and maybe in a little different way. And I also received that from others. Right. I also think there's a lot to learn from others. And that's another thing that I will say, like, depending on where you are in your own sort of reconciliation process, as a person of color, you may or may not be ready to listen to the other side. And that's okay.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. I think you give such important caveats that should be obvious but often aren't. We talk all the time about bringing your full and authentic self to work, but those safety cues, or just like the organizational culture that, may not be right for that. I think it's so important to factor in here. Talk to us a little bit about the flip side. So if it's clear that we need to lead with those messy, chaotic, hard narratives, and we also know that they don't often fit within, like, the gamification of the interview process, right? Often interviews aren't really interviews as assessments. It's can you play the game appropriately? Tell me your weakness. Don't really tell me your weakness. And if you do, shame on you. So how can you speak some tough love to managers, interviewers, executives, HR practitioners on how they can create better spaces for people to be their authentic self and share those tougher narratives? Because, as you know, they have value. They bring something unique. Any tough love you can give to hiring managers here on how to create space for that?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah, I think that, unfortunately, when that is the case, when you're in a culture where you really are trying to more figure out if this person is a good fit, as opposed to thinking about it, as how will this person maybe what value are they bringing to our organization to help us with blind spots? Which is another way to think about maybe the approach that managers and executives might want to think about it. I think that it really just says two different things, right? Like, one of them is you're going to continue to attract the people and the thoughts and the ideas that's already probably represented in your community, in your work community, as opposed to being much more asking random questions quote-unquote or just kind of more off the cuff kinds of questions. So one of the questions that I really like to ask, I actually got this idea from a co-worker, and it really tells you a lot about the person, but in a way that I think is still kind of safe because it's meant to be fun. And it's like, if you were fruit, what fruit would you be and why? I know it sounds so like

Phil Wagner

I'm all about those ridiculous creative things, though. I really am. I'm here for all of it.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

I think they're fun. I really think they're fun. And I get how they could be so frustrating to someone that's like, what the heck does this have to do with my job, with this job description? And, like, why? But I think one, it lets you know when that person is not okay with the script, because if they're, like, more sort of, like, taken aback by the fact that you even asked this question, you're just like, oh, this person is really struggling with bringing in things into an interview that's meant to be much more quote-unquote professional or, like, some legality around it. I don't know much about the legal aspect of HR, so I can't speak too much about that. But I know that there are some questions you just cannot ask, and so please stick to that. But as far as the legal ramifications, but questions that sort of elicit this, like, hey, it's okay. You could be playful and fun, but also, we're people. We're going to think about things differently. We're going to bring up things that might be totally maybe off base with how other folks think about it. And it's okay to invite people to start sort of feeling comfortable with who they are and why they might bring up things. I also think this question is great because the times that we've asked it, I've noticed that a lot of folks are very culture, kind of dependent on this question. So, like, Vietnamese folks will mention fruits and vegetables that I'm like, whoa, I've never had that, or I've never heard of that.

Phil Wagner

That's interesting.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Or just like, tropical fruits. And I'm just like, oh, yeah, I totally would have thought of that fruit as having that kind of a personality or whatever reasoning they gave for why they chose that fruit.

Phil Wagner

Oh, that's cool. That's great insight. So when I was reading your book, I think it might be because I was also navigating through some other works from particularly indigenous authors at the time. And really, the central theme stuck out to me across the works that I was reading, which is on the role of space and place. And I think you just alluded to this in your last question, space, and place in our overall sort of self-concept, you know, in your book that you grew up I think it's by research, you even cite you grew up, quote, unquote, in one of the most miserable cities in the US. And you kind of deconstruct that narrative a bit, too. I'm wondering since space and place played such a huge role in your story, can you tell us how to better factor in things like place, space, heritage, native lands into our conception of a more just world? I think DEI practitioners get so lost in the weeds, but you take us home in the truest sense. Talk to us a little bit about space, place, and the role it plays in your own narrative.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah, well, if I'm understanding the question correctly and feel free to.

Phil Wagner

Who knows? I get started, and I'm like, where did we even land?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Why did I even ask that?

Phil Wagner

I know.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Space and place, which is another way of thinking about intersectionality, right, has so much to do with who we are. Whether you want to accept that or not, just research just proves that. And I also understand that research itself is not unbiased. Right? So a lot of as a researcher myself, having gone through a Ph.D. program and having been taught sort of more mainstream ideas about education and how I should be approaching questions and thinking about questions, I totally had, like, rebuttals at every corner and turn because I was like, what? This doesn't make any sense, but what about this? But what about that? I just constantly have always, because of my own social location, have been privy to certain kinds of ways of thinking about things that, I guess to much of the chagrin of my own professors, really hard to navigate through grad school because I did want to keep bringing us back to that. I did want to keep sort of saying, okay, well, if we're going to say, for instance, like, there's an education, there's this big idea about Latinx parents not being as involved as parents in the educational journeys of their children. For me personally, I knew that was the case because, in Mexico, it's not free. Education is not an expectation, right? So you value the teachers, and you value the administrative staff because they have dedicated their lives to this work that you're paying for. And it's a lot of money. And only people that really have money can go through school in Mexico. And it's by no means something that everyone gets. And so if you bring people like that and put them in a context where education is free, clearly teachers are devalued. Like, we don't pay them enough. And also, we think about parent involvement as like, making the teacher's job easier. So I'm going to deal with the social-emotional development of my child at home so that when they're in school, the teacher teaches and is able to do the things that they're supposed to do. And it's their job, not my job, right? So it's almost like a respect. It's like there are boundaries, and this is what's respectful for you to do, and this is what's respectful for me to do as a parent. And I'm not going to cross those. But we see that as, like, parents not being involved in education or care about education because they're not at the PTA meetings, they're not here when there are fundraisers without thinking about, like, well, can people afford to take off time off work? Do they have PTO? Do they have paid time off? Do they have opportunities to be able to come in to volunteer after working one or two jobs to make ends meet if they're from a lower-income population, for instance? Right. So there's, like, all these things that just make parent involvement such actually a very tricky thing to talk about in a very pluralistic kind of society, which is what we are.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

I'm with you on that. Space and place is definitely something that I'm always thinking about. Yeah. It really shapes the way that we think about shapes our own experiences, the way that we show up for other people's experiences, the way that we think about concepts.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

And it's just a lot there to be miscommunicated and misunderstood.

Phil Wagner

It's such a helpful lens. Also, I think it's a call to travel, right? Like, you become less bigoted the more of the world you see. Right. And you realize that your own unique experiences are just a small pocket of what exists out there. But I think that's probably a conversation for another time. Look, I want to talk a little bit about the role that you play as an author and an educator and a researcher and a practitioner because I think you kind of clearly situate yourself, and I love how you do it. You're clearly in the business of good trouble, right? You own your position here as a rebel and as an agitator, but like, a good one, all for good. So one of the things that I think gets a lot of critique is that in the DEI industry, everything has to be so neat and sanitary, and palatable. So you get the most buy-in. Right? That doesn't seem to be your approach. You challenge the narrative. You lean into what you say, hold your ears, mom, is your inner badass, and you kind of give us a higher order call to stir the pot a bit. Talk to us about that approach. How did you find yourself there? Is that just your default? Did you get there over time?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

I think part of it is a little bit of a default, and I also talk about this in the book. I've always seen rules as, like, why? When I see a rule, I don't think, like, yeah, let me make sure that I stick within the boundaries of this and not get in trouble. I want to know why. Who made this up? Why did they make that up? Who is it serving? Who is not serving? In a lot of our society, the rules that were made up were meant to serve one group of people a long time ago. So it's even old for that group of people. They don't even like it, I think, anymore. It's just very, in some ways, very sanitary, clean. But it's. Also, I think, very dissociative. It just creates more division in the way that it's even laid out. Because we're finding ways in which we're not getting along as rule and making up rules around that. As opposed to ways that we harmonize and we do great, and that's not really. Like. The ethos of our, I mean. Most rules and laws are around. Like. Which boundaries are annoying to us when other people push it. And so let's make a rule around that instead of like, hey, we're really good at this. Let's make a rule about that. I guess I've always kind of questioned that. A lot of that probably has to do with having a lot of rules as a kid. I think I'm kind of telling a little bit on myself, just being governed by super traditional machista men in my earlier years. But some of it, too, I think I'm all about. Even in the work that I do as a DEI consultant in the schools and in the educational environment in which I work. I'm all about how can we humanize our experiences. Even as a professor, I quickly introduce my background. I'm very comfortable sharing, for instance, like, what my pedagogy is, like, why I think about learning in this way, and sort of like, the need for rest that's part of my pedagogy. Like, you need to rest. We're just made to rest. Like,

Phil Wagner

Say that.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

if we don't know that by now, I think as adults, we spend like, what, two-thirds of our life sleeping, like, we should know that we are meant to rest. And so because of that, I structured the work and the demands of the class as having a lot of breaks. Having a lot of time for you to just reflect and to think about the stuff that you're reading and not just like. Let's read five books and give me an analysis of it. But let's just really stick with this and think about what we mean. What we understood. What came out? What resonated with us because of our own lived experience. Our social locations. And so I think similarly. In the more in the other professional work that I do and non-profit work. I really invite folks to name those things. To talk about the things that make us human. The things that are taking up space outside of work that are maybe affecting the way that we're showing up to work and ways that we can support one another through those changes. I'm kind of recalling right now a time when a young out-of-college Latina joined our team, and she was very much in a very antagonistic place where she was just like so upset about white culture and sort of like her own experience and being in college and having her experience be very what she called like whitewash. Like not learning about her own history or about just history in general. That was just more complex. Right.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

And I remember a lot of that would show up in our meetings and our collaborations and her really pushing back, really getting very antsy and kind of almost aggressive and more beyond assertive, beyond comfortable now. And I remember just kind of stepping aside with her and being like, hey, there's like a lot going on. I get it. As also Latina who has to go through a similar educational system, I get all that that could happen. What are you doing to take care of yourself? What are some of the boundaries that you need and work to be able to do that? Who's maybe showing up and representing that evil white capitalistic, all of the things, who has become that's the person that's like, in my mind, that's what I associate with right now. Because sometimes it's not even that person, right? Like that person might be just minding their own selves and living their own lives, but we do that. Sometimes, I think too in our own as we're growing and sort of finding ourselves in that journey. And if we're not being very good about taking care of ourselves and our whole selves, how can we expect others to basically show up in this way that we need them to if we don't even know why you're even showing up in this way, basically? So I love conversations like that. I know that they can be very uncomfortable to folks, and I think part of why I'm much more comfortable at them now is because of practice and because of messing up so many times and having to, like, hey, that's not what I meant. What I meant was or misgendering people. I've just done it all.

Phil Wagner

And me too.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

I think that as long as we can come back and say like, hey, my apologies, what I meant was this or that's not on you. This is something I need to learn. Thank you for your patience kind of thing. And I think we need to learn more about how we're going to what are we going to say when we mess up. I think sometimes we're so hard on ourselves and don't want to mess up.

Phil Wagner

I agree.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

That we shy away from so many true, authentic conversations, and instead, I think we should start developing like these brave spaces where you're just like, hey, I'm going to mess up. I'm probably going to say something that is going to feel hurtful that I probably did not mean but that I still need to hear was hurtful because otherwise, I won't grow as a person, and you won't be heard.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

I think brave spaces has been a very hot topic word in DEI work right now. As opposed to like, safe spaces, we don't want safe spaces. We want brave spaces.

Phil Wagner

I agree with you. I agree. And I think those opportunities for correction, in my experience, I have had many of them. I own that. I have said and done the wrong thing. I totally get that. I have found that most of the time, when the party whose dignity I have violated, albeit non intentionally, brought those forward to me, it was always so gentle and so kind. If I've gotten grief from anybody, it's those sort of like DEI whistleblowers on the side, the social justice warriors who want to call you out on your stuff. It's never been the actual person. Those real human conversations have a way of reinforcing shared trust, shared values. We all drop the ball from time to time. Give yourself grace, apologize, own it. Don't brush it under the rug, and move on. I want to talk about going back to the flip side of the question we just addressed. You talk about owning your stuff, and in the context of the world of work, there's something I took from your book, which is the part where you challenge folks to insist on telling their story. And I think that fits with insist on drawing margins and boundaries. And I think this is really important in an organizational context, but I also know that it comes with risks, right? So how do you suggest going specifically to brown women here? How do you suggest those historically underrepresented or minoritized or exploited folks in the world of work successfully navigate that risk environment when they're pushing or rebelling or insisting or provoking others towards good? I know what the imperative is to folks who look like me. It's to create space for those narratives to bubble up, to be represented. But how do you recommend folks who are insisting and pushing and rebelling and provoking? How do you recommend they do so in a way that doesn't upend their whole career or their whole professional livelihood?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

That's a really great question. I've upended my career a couple of times because coming in. I'm just upset you all are going to hear it change the system right now. You know, and interestingly enough, like, I think I've learned how to navigate that with more wisdom through my own sort of reclaiming of my story. So when I look back, and I looked at sort of my history and rather than seeing myself as the oppressed mestiza and looking at myself as a surviving Indigena and Afrodescendiente, so, like indigenous and Afro-descendant, when I started to see myself, I'm not oppressed. I am a survivor. I come from a line of survivors. This is what my whole, like, all of the four mothers before me were about. I need to channel that one in. And I think sometimes when we're still in the very oppressed, when we're only seeing the ways that we are being minoritized, the ways that we're being held back because we don't look a certain way and promotions are happening, and we're not part of that or whenever that's coming up into our space, and we start to feel like, man, this is like, oppressive energy. And yet somehow imagine how much our ancestors went through that to, like, a zillion degree right, of, like, literal murder. Like, they were murdered, and yet, we're still here. Like, people like me, you are still here. That's the history that I want folks to, like, start to find that through line with, because I think once we start seeing our real ancestors, which what they were survivors of genocide, survivors of you name it, we start to see like, oh yeah, I can do this, I can heal from this. If my ancestors healed from this, I can also heal from this and find a way to be true to myself and not become someone I don't want to be, but also find a place where that's going to be valued and a place that's going to want that for me and not see me as sort of like a risk factor in this situation. So that's kind of my kind of, I guess, note to folks that are in those spaces right now.

Phil Wagner

So powerful. So I have really two final questions. This is the last, I think, bigger one, and I want to go back to something we talked about earlier, which was about bringing the quote-unquote full and authentic self to work. In so many ways, I think your book explores how complicated those full and authentic selves are, right? You talk about their selves with scars, selves whose dignity has been violated, selves who are working through healing and reimagining their futures and their possibilities. How might your frameworking to go and help us rethink what it means to bring our full and authentic self to work in this sort of reclaimed way that you set up in the book?

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Right. Yeah, that's a great question. I think what Chingona offers is a way to start looking at your narrative at your story. And really hone in on what are some of those mental barriers or actual physical ones in your context that are really stopping you from being what you might imagine when no one's listening when you're kind of on your own like that person that you want to be. Like that ideal self or that self of like I really want to do this or I want to get to this level. A lot of times, I think I talk about this as well in one of the chapters is, The Colonial Mindset, right? Because we come from a colonized community, sometimes we take on this colonial mindset, which is what I call imposter syndrome of not feeling good enough for what we're here to do or what we can offer the spaces that we're invited to and owning that and kind of stepping in into those spaces bravely. And I think that's real. I think that's so real for a lot of highly educated Chingonas out there, highly motivated professionals. Sadly, that's part of sometimes what we come with, too. And I think that the sooner we start to really listen to ourselves, listen to that voice that sometimes are called like negative thought patterns. I think the sooner that we can understand ourselves in that way, the faster we're going to be at not letting others people's words corroborate those lies in our minds. This is why what really excites me about the reframing that I do is really going beyond, like, yes, we're about equity. Yes, we're about justice, but we're also about healing. We should be coming from a place of healing. We should try to get to a place of healing, whether to you, that means, like, your spiritual life. If it means mostly, like, physically trying to get to a place of healing or mentally or all of the above, there's just so much healing that can happen. Both, sadly, but also, I think it's also, like, a really amazing way that we can celebrate who we are.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

It doesn't have to just be like, man, well, I wish I didn't have to work on myself so hard. I've definitely been in that place, right, where it's like, well, yeah, but that sucks cause that's a lot of work. And I could be spending that time moving up in my organization or doing better things with my time or whatever. And that's true. That is absolutely true.

Phil Wagner

You just described every conversation I've had with my therapist. That's it. This takes so much effort.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yes, it does.

Phil Wagner

It's worth it.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

And that's the thing. Like, we can't fall, I mean, I'm guilty of this and kind of digging myself out of it, but we can't fall into that depressive state for too long because then it really starts to shape who we are and will get us farther away from what we want to become or who we want to really be. And that's, I think, what Chingona means to me. It's like it's a lifelong marathon. It's a thing you're going to work on every single day. It's not something that's going to be, like, magically, you're now a chingona, and you're all about healing injustice. No, this is a lifelong work, and it's about how to be a co-conspirator with other women in other oppressed communities. And it's about also reimagining what the future could look like beyond what we've been told. Beyond what we, the limiting beliefs of other people have imposed on us. So, yeah.

Phil Wagner

Love it. So if you're listening and you are not absolutely salivating to get your hands on a copy of this book, what's wrong with you? It's so engaging. It's fun for as heavy a themes as you discussed. It's also a fun read. Your voice is so well represented here, and it's truly enjoyable and it teaches me, it gives me a new lens, it gives me a new framework, so I appreciate it. Final question for you is tell our listeners how they can find you, get a copy of the book and support your work.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Yeah, so my social handle is thedocZP. So the doczp on all the socials I kept it very easy so you can find me. That's also my website. Very easy. And you can find a book anywhere that books are sold. I prefer that you go through the link that I have on my Instagram because it supports local bookstores, and I think that's also really important where we're getting our merchant. For me, it is. And I know that we can't all do all the things all the time that are about pushing social justice forward because it's also a lot of work. But one of the ways that I'm asking folks to support my work is by buying from smaller bookstores and finding places that are women black-owned to buy my book from.

Phil Wagner

Love it. Book drops November 2022, right around the corner. Get your pre-orders in now. Alma, thank you for an engaging conversation, a real and raw conversation. I so appreciate you, the work you do, and the time you've spent with us here today. Thanks for joining us.

Alma Zaragoza-Petty

Thank you for having me.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What it means to help organizations curate a culture of inclusion
• The challenges involved with being a DEI coach during a culturally turbulent season
• How to start difficult conversations without reinforcing trauma
• The important difference between being a white savior and connecting on a human level
• Why it's imperative to be mindful of social context when doing DEI work
• What is the role of social justice in the context of organizational DEI work
• How should DEI practitioners include social awareness into their strategy
• The best way to offer socially relevant programming that's not traumatic or exploitative
• How to hold organizations accountable to not co-opt significant cultural and social moments

Transcript

Sacha Thompson

What are these communities saying within your organization? Are you listening to them and their experiences?

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Today, our featured guest is Sacha Thompson, who is the founder of the Equity Equation, LLC, a diversity coaching and consulting firm based in the DC area. With nearly 20 years of experience within education, and nonprofits, and tech, Sasha has seen up close and personal the challenges that executives face when they have good intentions but don't fully know how to turn those intentions into good action in the diversity and inclusion space. She helps executives and leaders have the important dialogue they need to have and coaches them towards the necessary long-term changes they need to make to develop a culture of inclusion and inequality. Her work has been featured on MSNBC, Fox Soul, Business Insider, the New York Times, and Bianchi is also the host of a dynamic series called DEI after Five that you have to check out.

Phil Wagner

Sacha, my friend, thank you for joining us today. It's always a pleasure to speak with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time.

Sacha Thompson

Thank you, Phil, so much for having me. I'm super excited as well to be here.

Phil Wagner

All right, so before we get started, I've tried to give an appropriate bio, but you're one of the people I really struggle to, like, bring your bio in. You do so much. So anything you want to clarify? Can you tell our listeners maybe a little bit more about who you are, what you do, how you got there?

Sacha Thompson

Yeah. So right now, I have been calling myself the Inclusion Culture Curator. Right. And so what that is, is how do you help organizations curate a culture of inclusion? What does that look like? And so helping managers and leaders talk about psychological safety and make changes, small changes for themselves as people leaders, so that their employees feel that they're valued, seen, heard, and connected. Right. That's the work that I do. That's what I love doing.

Phil Wagner

I love that curated language, too, because it really shows the role that a consultant, I think, probably should play. Right. To come in and help move the pieces, but allow the pieces to shine, allow the culture to shine. If you're scared to work with a consultant, maybe don't. They're not going to come in and rewrite your whole organization. They're going to come in and help you arrange the pieces for maximum effectiveness. So I love what you do. Clearly a fan here. All right. So I know you. We've had some tough conversations in the past or conversations on tough things, and I'm hoping we can do that here today, too.

Sacha Thompson

Of course.

Phil Wagner

What I'm hoping we can talk about today is just the ongoing social context we find ourselves living in and doing DEI work in. So we're recording this right at the beginning of fall 22. The summer season has been a little bit nuts. It's been a social whirlwind, right? I mean, since the start of the year, gosh, we've got the war raging in Ukraine. There have been mass shootings carried out in the places we thought to be most safe, like the grocery store or Independence Day parades. The economy grew, then shrunk, then grew, then roared, then dove. Prices are through the roof. And then, like, sort of small little footnote. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and sort of changed the whole landscape of the nation as we've known it for decades. So kind of a lot going on, right?

Sacha Thompson

Yeah.

Phil Wagner

Perhaps it might be really helpful to park our conversations there. I don't think we ask each other enough, like, how you doing, but with all, that's going on, as a DEI coach, how do you grapple with the onslaught of just these dynamic events as they play out, these tragic events? What does that mean for you, your work, your self-care, and how you see your work as a DEI consultant?

Sacha Thompson

Yeah, I love that question. I think part of the challenge right now is something that we actually started seeing in 2020. For so long, corporations, organizations have left kind of the social stuff outside the door. Right. Once you come to work, you come into work. You make your widgets. You do whatever it is that you do that has all changed. And on top of that, what you didn't mention was, we're still in a pandemic.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. It's not over. We're getting there. We think it's over. But we've been there, too. Right? We know. Is there ever a post-COVID era? I know, I know.

Sacha Thompson

Right. So it's like this kind of new normal of there's a blurred line between what happens outside of those walls and what happens inside of those walls. And so what I've been doing a lot of work with, particularly with people managers, has been, how do we grapple with hybrid workplace? People have different expectations. There's all this conversation around the great resignation or quiet quitting.

Phil Wagner

Quiet quitting. Right.

Sacha Thompson

Quiet quitting has been going on for years, but that's a whole other conversation. And so, how do you prepare to have some of those conversations? Right? And so I had a conversation with a VP the other day, and he's like, okay, I have an employee who's moving to this part of the country, and I'm trying to think through everything. I'm trying to be proactive and set up all of these things. And I asked him, what have you asked her what does she need? And he was like. I hadn't thought about that. And so it's those little things that companies and organizations need to do with everything that's going on. With the shooting in Buffalo, there were so many folks that didn't even know how to have that conversation,

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

and so they didn't say anything. Right. And then the impact of that is, well, my company doesn't care, my manager doesn't care, my leader who says they care didn't even check on me. They don't care. And so it's one simple thing that you can do is say, I don't know what to say.

Phil Wagner

 Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

But all I can do is ask, how can I help you? How can I support you right now?

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I'm with you. Right. We have this idea, like, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. And so when those uncomfortable things play out, we're like, Haha. This is a negative space, a hard space, a potentially traumatic space. A space I don't understand because of my skin color, my lived background. Don't not say anything. Right. Say something. Open the conversation. Even if that sort of puts it into a vulnerable space to say, I don't really know how to support you right now. How can I support you right now? What do you need? I think that's such a simple question. If we just ask that, my gosh, how quickly could we change some organizational cultures that need shifting?

Sacha Thompson

Absolutely. One of the things that I often say is, just because we're in the same space at the same time doesn't mean that we got here at the same way.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Sacha Thompson

So just don't assume that people have the same journey. People are experiencing the same things. Because it may not impact you directly doesn't mean it's not impacting others, and vice versa. You might be very impacted as a manager about something that's going on, and your expectation is everyone should have the same angst that you do.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

And so it's how do you tie into the individuality of who we are?

Phil Wagner

Let's talk about that if you don't mind. So okay, let's go back to Buffalo. When Buffalo happened, I immediately reached out to sort of my circle of friends, people of color and had that sort of awkward conversation. And yet even I, as a DEI person, an inclusion-minded person, like, am I reinforcing trauma here? Right? Should I? And so I tried to do that, but I think there are some conflictions that also come from a good space. Right. I don't want to reinforce trauma. I don't want to tokenize you. And so not knowing your role, I think, can sometimes be confusing. Have you found best practices for when social events play out that impact historically underrepresented, minoritized, or exploited group? How do we reach out in ways that is supportive but doesn't reinforce trauma in that moment?

Sacha Thompson

Right. It's about opening the door, not forcing that door open.

Phil Wagner

That's good.

Sacha Thompson

Right. And so let me know how I can help because, in that way, I'm not forcing myself onto you. I'm just saying. I'm here if you need that support. I'm here. I may not know all the answers, but we can talk through that.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. And so, again, it's the framing of that question and your intent behind asking it.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. Because if your intention is just to say, yes, I asked.

Phil Wagner

I did it.

Sacha Thompson

I'm good.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Sacha Thompson

That comes across right. But if you genuinely care, you're not going to continue to push. You're not going to

Phil Wagner

I love that.

Sacha Thompson

continue to retraumatize people. Right. If you need support, if you need help, let me know. I'm here.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. It's an invitation. You don't have to RSVP if you don't want to. Totally.

Sacha Thompson

Exactly.

Phil Wagner

But I think it's that gentle, gracious place and doing it to people that you have a relationship with, so it doesn't seem exploitational or look at me. I'm the white savior. I feel good because I reached out. Right. No, we have a relationship. We're in covenant with each other. It's my duty. If something happened in your personal life, it's my duty as a friend, as a comrade, to come along and make sure you're okay. And I think that applies here, too.

Sacha Thompson

Phil, I think you just touched on something that is such a critical piece of this. And one of the things that I struggle, not that I struggle with, that a lot of my clients struggle with in trying to become more inclusive leaders, it's how do I connect with people at a human level.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. Which requires trust, which requires time, and patience, which requires all of these things. But we're working in a world that is constantly on caffeine, that's constantly going. And so how do you step back and take that time to get to know someone so that when these tragedies happen, you can have that conversation or even know, oh, this is something that may be important to this person. Let me reach out.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think that's so good. And those relationships, everything I do, I think comes back to relationship. I think that that's just a core foundation of effective communication and effective DEI work and certainly factors in here.

Sacha Thompson

Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Sacha, you and I have talked quite at length about how DEI work is often regarded as something that sort of exists in a silo. You and I know that the best DEI work is socially informed DEI work. We've talked about this. We have to look at what's going on and infuse those current events or what's happening in the world around us into our work. Why do you think it is so important to be mindful of social context when we're doing DEI work, be it consulting or leading an ERG or just being about the business of inclusion-oriented leadership? Why do we have to have our eye on what's going on around us in society?

Sacha Thompson

Because that's what changes this work.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. It's ever-evolving. It's ever-changing. And so, as someone that's in this space, you have to be aware. You have to be tied into kind of the social implications of this. So you mentioned Roe v. Wade, right? For so many organizations, they immediately said, oh, we're going to create travel reimbursement for anyone that they went through, and which was great. But I'm like, what are some other layers to this? Right? How is your EAP set up? Are you prepared? Do you have a system in place that has providers that can help support people? Because that's a level of trauma as well, too, to have to make some of those decisions? Are you talking about childcare options as a part of your benefits package? They said the number of vasectomies request or interest in vasectomies skyrocketed during that time. Right. So what are you doing to support the men in your organization that may be thinking about those things? So it's that's the impact as a DEI practitioner. It's understanding how what's happening in the world impacts the corporate space and vice versa.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. And so being aware, being knowledgeable, it's not just about, let's talk about what does LGBTQ mean? Let's go beyond that. Right. What are the challenges that that community has that's impacted by your policies, your processes, all of those things?

Phil Wagner

Right because are you tired of doing the education that Google could do for you? Right.

Sacha Thompson

I don't do any.

Phil Wagner

Good, but often DEI practitioners are called in to do just the basic ABCs, sometimes quite literally. And that matters. We need an awareness. But you have a world of information at your fingertips. And so I think it's so important to go beyond that. It's something you said to really makes me think. I think a lot of people who are just getting their foot in the door and trying to increase the profile of their awareness around DEI work think this is stuff just like maybe for the West Coast, right? Like liberal woke hubs. Walmart has expanded their coverage for abortion access. I don't know of any more telling tale of how this impacts everybody everywhere. Every industry This isn't about woke-washing corporate America. These are realities. The social events are shaping organizational cultures, organizational structures. And so I think that's an important footnote as well. There's been a lot of buzz in our circles, in the DEI leadership circle. In some online spaces, people like us, you and me, are trying to draw a line between DEI and then that DEIJ, that justice works, saying the DEI work within organizations is just for organizations. There is no justice outcome. There is no sort of social mindedness here. Do you see it that way? How do you see justice or social justice in the context of organizational DEI work?

Sacha Thompson

For me, it falls under equity, which is an aspect of DEI that is very rarely talked about or discussed. What is equity? It's creating or providing opportunities for people by giving them what they need in order to succeed. Right. So how do you remove barriers or provide access? That's what justice is, right? How are you removing barriers? How are you creating access? How are you righting wrongs in your processes, policies, and procedures, right? So when I saw some of that conversation happening, I think what it did was it forced us to really look at why are we doing this work.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Are you doing this work just to say this is diversity and inclusion, or are you trying to move the needle and start to dismantle inequitable systems? Now, I think what's interesting is the language that's used is always up for different debate and conversation, right? If I go into an organization and say, I want to come in here and disrupt your systems of inequity, dismantle them and rebuild, they're going to look at me like I'm crazy, right? But if I say I want to help you create a culture of inclusion where everyone feels that they are valued, seen, heard, and connected. Everyone's like, oh yeah, I want that, right? Like, that's great. It's the same thing. And so it's funny. I call it sneaking in the vegetables.

Phil Wagner

I like that. Oh yeah, that resonates with me. I have kids. I get that.

Sacha Thompson

Right? So how do you do this work? What is the impact that you're trying to create? So justice is a part of that, but you can block off so many people just by that word. Even diversity, equity, and inclusion closes down so many doors, right? So it's like, okay, I'm not going to talk about that, but what is it that you want in the long run? Right? What are the results? And so the results of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, accessibility, belonging, all of those things, that's what we should be really focused on rather than what letters we're trying to support.

Phil Wagner

Terms change, understandings change. I love how you cut right down the middle there, and I think that's such a balanced approach in the larger conversations. Like you, I am nervous when we take justice completely out of the picture. And I love how you wrap it up in some of the other letters of the acronym that exist. Because if we take it out completely, this is just a compliance model, right?

Sacha Thompson

Yup.

Phil Wagner

That doesn't do anything for really anybody.

Sacha Thompson

It's checking a box.

Phil Wagner

It's checking a box, and that has its place. Or we need some boxes checked for our safety, for our wellbeing, but that is not enough. So I really appreciate your clarity here. Talk to me a little bit about how we make sort of a social awareness embedded into our DEI work, like, how might DEI practitioners build this sense of social awareness or pull on current events or what's going on outside in the world around us and slow bake it into a higher level DEI strategy?

Sacha Thompson

I think it helps you shape your policies, right? It helps you have conversations around accountability. It helps you think about, okay, what kind of culture do we want to create here? Right? So, for example, several years ago, there was the incident, the Starbucks incident, where the two guys were working, and I was working in an organization where they love to use that example of microaggressions. And then the director did a very similar thing to me where I was doing my job. She didn't like it, so she reported me to the head of HR. And so I'm like, okay, let's think about how this looks, right? Because you could regurgitate. This is what happened at Starbucks with the actual impact of how it shows up day to day. Those are the conversations that we need to have, right? Yes, this happened, but how do we mirror this in our organization? What does that look like? And if we are doing these things, how do we start to dismantle what that looks like?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right? And so it's how do we start having conversations? How do we not escalate things to a higher authority without having conversation? Because then that creates a hostile work environment. How do you then hold people accountable for those types of actions as well too? And so, what's that policy look like for accountability? So it's really taking what happens in the world around us and bringing it into what does this look like in the corporate space? What does this look like within our organization? And how can we start to create rules, policies, procedures, accountability so that this is not what we're dealing with?

Phil Wagner

And you brought it all the way full circle there. You brought it all the way back to relationships yet again.

Sacha Thompson

Yeah.

Phil Wagner

So that when those accountability conversations, those tough moments, those let, you know, you drop the ball here happens that we are in community. It's on me to sort of guide you and on you to guide me. And I don't need to escalate because we've built our foundation on relationships. And that's a stronger foundation, I think too.

Sacha Thompson

Absolutely.

Phil Wagner

What about at a programmatic level? So how do we do programming in the D&I space? I'm thinking like L and D work without feeling exploitative. I'll give an example. I was teaching, oh my gosh, it was last summer, I think, on communicating with racial skeptics, like working with people who don't believe racism exists. Right. I teach in the communication and DEI space. And that played out at the exact same time that the shootings in Buffalo happened. And feelings were so raw. And we created time and space to talk about it, but also factored heavily into our content. And I was like, okay, I don't want to reinforce trauma on my black and brown students in this moment, but I can't ignore it. So what standards of maybe the word is like etiquette or propriety, like being proper about how to talk about current tough events while recognizing feelings are raw, emotions are high, these are painful, traumatic events. Do you have any insights on how we can offer programming that's socially relevant but not traumatic or exploitative?

Sacha Thompson

I think there is a process. I would call it not necessarily a process called caucusing. And what I have seen happen in those situations is you caucus. You separate people by their identity and have conversations because then now you're creating, let's say. We'll do this around race, right? So you'll have a group for your white students, a group for your students of color, or even more specifically, your black students, your Latino students, your Asian students, right, depending on your numbers. And you allow them to caucus within the safe space of that community around how can we bring this together? Right? What are the questions that you want to ask? What is it that you think the other groups need to know? Right? And so you allow them space to sometimes even just cry together. Sometimes it's just commune. Or I've been thinking this is somebody else thinking this, giving them that sense. But then it's like, okay, what questions do you have of your white classmates? Right? And then you facilitate that conversation.

Phil Wagner

So I have a question here because this comes up often when we see social events play out that reinforce some aspect of trauma in the D&I space. We often hold a variety of different things. There are sort of spaces where people of like-mindedness can come together. And we often make it a commitment to build spaces for any instance of Buffalo specifically. Since we've used that example of, like, if we're all on zoom, let's create a zoom room for particularly black students particularly. But black and brown folks to be in that space in and of their own accord without white people present. But then also, like you mentioned, bring people together. Can you speak to the importance of those sort of identity affinity safe spaces where you are with other folks of that identity and have the opportunity to safely discuss and group and organize and what that does for sort of then when we bring the whole group together? Because I think some skeptics might be like, aren't we sort of reinforcing segregation here? But those spaces really matter for safety, a psychological safety. Can you speak to that as a DEI practitioner?

Sacha Thompson

Absolutely. And I actually have a client where I'm a university that I'm doing this for now. One so many people from marginalized communities often feel that they're the only right? They may be the only on their team. And so, by creating these spaces, what starts to happen is they realize I'm not the only one experiencing this. I'm not in this by myself. And they start to share, build relationship, build community amongst themselves to realize, okay, this isn't just me. Right? And there's a sense of levity that comes with that, like a sense of freedom that comes with that, okay, this isn't in my mind. This isn't me thinking all of these thoughts. The other part is you start to see patterns. You start to understand, okay, this has happened to you. This has happened to you all from the same person or all from the same group. There's a problem here, right? So you can start to identify that. But then there's also the sense of empowerment that comes about from those groups too. Because now it's like when I go back, and I'm the only I know that this group has my back. I know that this is a safe space for me to share and to be able to brainstorm, and think. But it takes time for that group to build that trust and that psychological safety as well too. So there's definitely a need for it. But I also want to be cautious, and when organizations create these spaces, don't make that a check box and like, yes, we created this affinity group for this organization over here, so we're good.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, all good. Done.

Sacha Thompson

Right. But now think about it as not only have you created that space, but that's now on top of the job that they were hired to do.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Sacha Thompson

So this is an additional time that they have to deal with stuff and they are all pointing out the problem is with the other group who's going on with their merry way. Right? And so, how do you balance that out? Where you're getting learnings from this affinity group that can then help educate the other group so that we're not back in the space again.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, and that's where sponsorship can really come into right. Something like ERGs and create that conduit, create that bridge so that what happens in that space doesn't start and stop in that space, but it informs policies, procedures, actions, cultures. I think that's so important.

Sacha Thompson

Exactly.

Phil Wagner

Sort of bigger finalish question. I never want to stop talking to you, as you know, but I want to go back to our point on exploitation earlier because I think that's a real concern. And you and I have also talked about how corporations often swoop in on the heels of a significant cultural moment and co-op the messaging and use it to pat themselves on the back. So every time some act of police violence is committed against a black or brown individual, a tweet goes up. Right. We know that Instagram goes full-out rainbow for Pride Month. And when Roe v. Wade was overturned, organizations were tripping over themselves to show how woke they were in, quote-unquote, supporting women in a way that really just sort of looked good and patted themselves on the back. You and I have talked about this. Not all of that movement, while it looked good, was actually good in the end. So as DEI practitioners, like how do you call people on it? How do you hold organizations accountable to not coopt significant social moments but to actually work towards meaningful change?

Sacha Thompson

I think it's what's been happening, right? It's we see these commercialization of

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that's a good word.

Sacha Thompson

pain that's been happening so often, and it takes social media to call it out. I continue to call it out, but I also think it takes having the right people at the table making those decisions. And so one of the things that I realized, or one of the things that I recognized recently, I think it was around Juneteenth, there was the whole debacle with the Juneteenth ice cream. Right. There was a great opportunity for Walmart to do the right thing by highlighting black companies that were selling the same ice cream. How do you highlight and support those companies rather than try to capitalize on it? And so I think that that's this next level of understanding for a lot of these companies is continue to be called out on social media until you get it right.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

And getting it right is ensuring that the work that is being done is going to positively support and impact the communities that you are trying you supposedly are supporting.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. So how are you bringing in for Pride Month? What are you doing other than going to a Pride parade? How are you supporting some of the organizations that are really helping those communities?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. Beyond Pride Month and not just in that month? Like, how are you doing it 365 days of the year, right? How are you supporting Asian Americans outside of Asian American Pacific Islander month?

Phil Wagner

Or when something happens? Right. I think, like, after the Spa shooting, we saw so much organizing in ways that I don't think organizations had seen the collective power of AAPI folks that now realize, oh, wait a minute, we have dropped the ball. Right. Like, these are valuable people, part of a very valuable invest community. And so those social moments, while painful, can also open up for a moment of realization and self-reflection. And I mean, look at the organizing that has come out of that too.

Sacha Thompson

Well, but I think it also speaks to these are communities that I have been yelling and screaming for years.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Sacha Thompson

Right. And it's like, now you're listening.

Phil Wagner

Now you're listening. Why? Because you have to.

Sacha Thompson

Right. But in you listening, listen to understand rather than listening to respond. And that's what we tell individuals. That's one on one communication. But from an organizational level, it's, what are these communities saying within your organization?

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Are you listening to them and their experiences? And that is on their way out the door. If they're saying that they're dealing with discrimination or harassment or microaggressions, don't just say, okay, yes, they're gone because others within that community that are still there are impacted by that too.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Sacha Thompson

Right. And so, how are you dealing with those types of things? And so, yes, I think there's this opportunity to take these social things that are happening outside, but really do some hard work with DEI across other departments because that's the other piece. It shouldn't just sit in DEI.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. Right.

Sacha Thompson

Across other departments, so that it impacts everyone.

Phil Wagner

So the recipe or model I'm hearing here is when that stuff happens. See it as an opportunity to step back, reflect, listen, hear what your employees need and want. Move forward towards action that is sustainable, beyond that passing social moment, and bake it into policies and procedures so that it's not just a response for a one-off but create systemic change. Is this our working model here today?

Sacha Thompson

Yes and.

Phil Wagner

Yes and, all right. Give me the and.

Sacha Thompson

Yes, and be proactive.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So that you're not just waiting for those moments to happen.

Sacha Thompson

So that you're not just reacting in those moments. Right.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, that is so good. Proactive, not reactive.

Sacha Thompson

Take the information that you've been given for however long your company has been around, right? And start to think about what can we do now, proactively, so that when something happens.

Phil Wagner

Right.

Sacha Thompson

We're already prepared, and our employees know that we're coming from a good place.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. You've got the infrastructure in place because these events just copy and paste of each other, right? Unfortunately, but, like, systemic violence against black and brown folks, that's not a one-off. That will happen again. So do you have the infrastructure in place so that your response is meaningful and helpful and effective, and truly supportive? I really appreciate that, Sasha. I think that's a really good takeaway to build that ahead of those moments.

Sacha Thompson

Yeah.

Phil Wagner

All right, final final question, I promise. This one is so easy. Like, if our listeners can't tell already, you are a wealth of knowledge and just an incredible person doing incredible things.

Sacha Thompson

Thank you.

Phil Wagner

Tell our listeners how they can support you, find you, maybe share a little bit more about DEI After Five and all the exciting things you have ahead. How can we support you?

Sacha Thompson

Yeah. So you can always follow me on LinkedIn. Sacha Thompson. Pretty easy to find there. You can look up the equity equation; www.equityequationllc.com is my website. You can find me on Instagram as well. I'm all over the socials. I'm all over those things. DEI After Five is my podcast where we have conversations like this. Where we talk about the intersection of business and DEI. We talk about different aspects of the industry, the DEI industry. I like to talk about the things in the corner, and I'm like in the corner. Let's talk about those things. And where I bring on different practitioners. I also talk a lot about self-care and wellness. And so I have therapists on that talked about burnout and stress and all of those types of things, because that's a part of this work that we often forget about and we don't talk about enough. I do Feel your Cup Fridays, where it's everything is we talk about what do you do to take care of yourself. And I'm announcing it here first.

Phil Wagner

Oh, okay. I'm excited about this.

Sacha Thompson

I am coming out very soon with a 60-day journal of self-care for DEI practitioners.

Phil Wagner

So needed. We talk about those themes on nearly every single episode. So self, guided 60-day journal.

Sacha Thompson

60-Day Journal. So I have coaching questions in there. It helps you tap into emotional intelligence as well, too, but it really is focused on DEI practitioners and how you show up. It takes less than 10 minutes a day.

Phil Wagner

That's awesome.

Sacha Thompson

To do that, because I want people to be very intentional with how they take care of themselves. So every day is a different thing that you can do, and then from that, you just kind of start your day and do some reflection.

Phil Wagner

When does it drop? Where do we get it?

Sacha Thompson

So you will be able to get it off of my website. It will be dropping hopefully the end of October.

Phil Wagner

Awesome.

Sacha Thompson

So I'll be pushing out all the things on social again for that. But yeah, I'm really excited about that. And it will come out just in time for the holidays so if people are doing holiday shopping.

Phil Wagner

There you go.

Sacha Thompson

Perfect gift for your favorite DEI practitioner or your teams.

Phil Wagner

There you go.

Sacha Thompson

So, yeah, I'm really excited about it.

Phil Wagner

Listeners, please definitely go support Sacha. If you're in the DMV area, certainly look her up too. She speaks to our students up there. She's a wonderful person, doing great things. So definitely check out DEI After Five. Sacha, my friend. Oh, my gosh. Always a pleasure to speak with you, but thank you for joining me today to talk about some of the tougher things, the things in the corner, as you say. I really appreciate your time and all that you do for the DEI industry and who you are as a person.

Sacha Thompson

Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful. Looking forward to continuing to work with you.

Phil Wagner

Many more conversations ahead.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• Where Dean Mooradian sees DEI issues factoring into the landscape of business education
• Why DEI work is so important to Dean Mooradian
• What are the business cases for DEI work
• How Birmingham and Atlanta economically diverged in the 50s due to diversity acceptance
• How best to gather people around a common initiative when there are so many competing viewpoints
• The importance in finding joy in being part of an organization that embraces diversity
• Why DEI is an integral part of a business education
• What Dean Mooradian's vision is for the future of the Raymond A. Mason School of Business

Transcript

Todd Mooradian

I'm committed to making people better, but only some people.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Todd Mooradian

Who would that be? Who would say I'm committed to making people better, but I get to pick who I want to make better?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Todd Mooradian

We want to make everybody better.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real, human-lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Hi, friends. Welcome to Diversity Goes to Work. It's a new season, both figuratively and literally. As the dog days of summer wane into beautiful autumn weather here in Williamsburg, we are excited to kick off season two of our podcast. Thanks for all your support in season one. Your likes, your listens, your shares, your communication. Keep it up, keep listening, because we've got a dynamic second season planned for you. And we knew exactly how we wanted to kick off that second season because, as it turns out, we're in the midst of a season's change here ourselves in the Mason School of Business. And our guest today is primarily the one responsible for all of that. Our own Dean Todd Mooradian, who began his time here as Dean in August, is certainly no stranger to the Mason School. Todd was a fixture in the business school in William & Mary for nearly 30 years, serving as both a faculty member and associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs. He left in 2017 to serve as Dean of the College of Business at the University of Louisville. And y'all, I simply cannot summarize his extensive bio. He has had an impressive career as an award-winning faculty member, researcher, and monumentally successful dean. His commitment to DEI runs deep, and he's had a huge impact on our own internal DEI efforts here in the Mason School. We are so excited to welcome him back to Miller Hall and exceptionally excited to welcome him to our podcast today. Dean Mooradian, thank you for making time in your very busy schedule to chat with us here. It's a true pleasure.

Todd Mooradian

Phil, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Phil Wagner

So here's what I want to do today if you're willing. Again, I know you as someone who is deeply committed to DEI, so I thought instead of waxing poetic about the value of DEI, we might actually situate that idea on the crosshairs just a little bit. We often hear the conversation sort of start and stop at the business case for DEI. It's good for organizations to be diverse. It's good for group and team dynamics, for multiple stakeholder opinions to be represented. And I think that business case, while true and while valuable, only carries us so far. So today, I'd like to talk about taking our work beyond the business case for DEI. So first things first is a framing device as Dean of a top-ranked business school. Where do you see DEI issues factoring into the landscape of business or business education?

Todd Mooradian

I think one of the essential values we give to the 21st century is that we're preparing the future leaders to function and contribute to a diverse, multicultural world that is in every way a better world for those qualities. And honestly, I think it would be a great disservice to those young people if we did not invest in their preparation. It's really just table ante for our students to be able to function, contribute to, and thrive in a multicultural world. And it's going to make them happier people, to make them more fulfilled. If they can take joy from diverse people and take value from working with diverse people, I believe those things absolutely.

Phil Wagner

Excellent. So this is a little bit of a personal question. Feel free to rebuff completely, but I'm wondering where you found your passion for this work. You speak of this as sort of a love language, and I love that framing. When you were here at the Mason School during your first tenure, you were a mover, and you were a shaker. And so much of the work that faculty like me get to do now is because of the seeds you planted back then. How did you find yourself in this space? What's your why? Why is DEI so important to you personally and or professionally?

Todd Mooradian

Well, first of all, you're very generous. I appreciate those comments about my contributions here and the contributions I made at Louisville that you know about, we do what we can, and then we get up tomorrow and try again. I grew up in a family that was dedicated to higher education. My mother was a librarian and an artist at the University of New Hampshire. My father was a coach and then an athletic director and administrator. And so, for me, being part of a campus community, campus communities tend to be more diverse, and to celebrate diversity and new ideas just came naturally. But I think my father actually had a unique, especially for his generation. He had a unique commitment to embracing everyone that came forward to get an education and go on and change the world. He believed in that. He was born a few years, a couple of years after my grandparents arrived from Armenia. And he was a guy with the greatest generation. And I think it's probably true of a lot of them. They lived through some extraordinary challenges and came out more appreciative and able to find happiness and embrace other people and help them get ahead. I know that was true of my dad. He had been a great high school athlete, something that apparently skips a generation. But he was recruited to an Ivy League school nearby, where he grew up in Boston. And I heard him tell this story probably a hundred times, Phil. His father, who barely spoke English, put them on the light rail train to Cambridge and took him over for his day being recruited. And they took him to lunch at one of the dining clubs, and one of the brothers said, well, he's a good athlete. He can eat here, but we're not letting his father eat in the dining room. So he walked away from Harvard to get back on the train. And, of course, anybody in Boston in 1940 would have thought, what a great thing for my child to be able to go to Harvard. And my grandfather turned to my dad and said, Andy, this is going to be great. You get to go to Harvard, but try not to be one of those jerks. And my father picked the University of New Hampshire, which was a place that took all comers, meant to serve the greater good, and knew that they didn't think that their stuff didn't stink. And he told that story about his commitment at the University of New Hampshire, where he spent 50 years after that serving the greater good, embracing everyone who came and living through desegregation and strife and all sorts of things that happened in American society. And so I saw my father with a deep commitment to not being one of those jerks. By the way, my grandfather didn't use the word jerks, at least not as my father's full-blown story, but now I'm a dean, so I'll say, he said, don't be one of those jerks.

Phil Wagner

All right, fair enough.

Todd Mooradian

And I think that my father is emblematic of the type of person who may not have naturally thought that they would be for diversity because they might not gladly say, oh, yeah, this is the kind of thing that I spend all my time committed to. But as a matter of fact, they're the kinds of people who believe deeply in fairness, in investing in other people, and they commit their lives to the idea that if we provide opportunities in education, the world will get better. You look here at William & Mary, there's lots of examples of that same kind of person, and I think they're the unusual person to say, oh, would this person be committed to diversity on campus and committed to that. Jim Kaplan has the basketball arena named after him. And I knew Mr. Kaplan. He passed away about a month ago. But Jim probably wasn't an active supporter of diversity, but he was a passionate supporter of fairness and opportunity. He came out of the coal mines, I believe, in western Pennsylvania, but it may have been West Virginia. And he talked about how William & Mary was the pathway to all that he was ever able to do, and he was committed to giving back. And what I'd like to do as a dean is to be able to find in all of our people, not just the people who naturally say, yeah, I'm for diversity. And then you look and sort of they're part of the new generation. But all people that are part of William & Mary, I think if they don't say, hey, I'm for diversity, if you push it a little, are you for fairness? Are you for opportunity? Do you think that the college can change the world by giving more people an opportunity to contribute? They'd be passionate support for that. So I think that my commitment to diversity and inclusion comes first from the idea that's just who we are. If you came into higher education and you are not for embracing everybody that comes across Ukrop way into the college of business, you made a mistake. You're not in the right place. This is a place that believes in embracing, celebrating, and nurturing everyone. And so I get passionate about it because I grew up around people. My mother was an artist. My father was a coach. And they gave everybody their full commitment to make them better. And they would never have imagined that their son would look at somebody and say, I'm committed to making people better, but only some people.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Todd Mooradian

Who would that be? Who would say I'm committed to making people better, but I get to pick who I want to make better?

Phil Wagner

Right.

Todd Mooradian

We want to make everyone better.

Phil Wagner

I love that framing. I love that framing. And thanks for allowing us to get to know you better through that story too. I love that human element. So, as dean of the business school, you're very familiar with the fact that we often take our conversations immediately to the business case for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And indeed, that's legitimate. There is a business case for it. Data tells us time and time again that an intentional focus on this is good for us. It's good for our culture. It's good for our productivity. It's good for our profit. So as someone who's worked in overseeing undergraduate and graduate business students at Louisville, can you frame that from the dean's lens, this business case, or the business value for an intentional focus on DEI?

Todd Mooradian

I can. I guess I'll try. My first reason for committing to diversity and inclusion is because of the people I love who are so diverse, and all of whom deserve to get that investment and to get that fair shot. And I think that's kind of a principle, not a practical perspective. It happens that I'm a Christian, and I believe there's a lot of rules in the world, but the Christian faith is based on a story about somebody who loved. And so I would like to say that the business case isn't the first thing that comes to my mind, and in fact, it's not the second. Have you ever been to New York City, Phil?

Phil Wagner

I have many times.

Todd Mooradian

What's wonderful about New York City?

Phil Wagner

Well, immediately I go to the food, but I think I probably should say the culture and the diversity of people, which I think those things maybe work together.

Todd Mooradian

Yeah, and even the food is better.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, the food is pretty good.

Todd Mooradian

I'm with you. I go to New York City. I think I could go out, get any type of cuisine.

Phil Wagner

Anything.

Todd Mooradian

And I can find any type of person, and I can find all sorts of art. It's the diversity. New York City is not apologizing for being a rich diversity of experience and cultures that come together into something wonderful. So if the first reason is principle that I'm passionate about diversity, inclusion, the second is probably joy. The joy of

Phil Wagner

I love it.

Todd Mooradian

It's just joyous to arrive in New York City. I met a student who traveled to South Asia this summer as I was walking across the parking lot and all the places they had been. Diversity across people and across cultures. Art, cuisine, music. That's joyous. So finally, we get to a practical argument, right? And you're right. Businesses and business schools fall to that practical argument too quickly because we should remember that we're passionate about it also because it reflects our values, whatever faith, and it reflects our joy. But if you get to a practical level, did you know that Birmingham and Atlanta were approximately the same as far as population and economic activity in the early 1950s?

Phil Wagner

Interesting.

Todd Mooradian

In Birmingham decided it would spend the 50s and the 60s hating. It became synonymous with segregation and exclusion. And Atlanta had a slogan too busy to hate.

Phil Wagner

I like that.

Todd Mooradian

And Atlanta exploded. And Atlanta is a global hub, and Birmingham is kind of not. And I'm not hating on Birmingham. I don't mean to do that. What I mean to do is to contrast very similar communities that are not far apart. And one chose to exclude and hate, and one chose to be too busy for that, and one prospered, and one didn't. I think there's a wonderful project that's called the Einstein Project. I actually Googled it, so I would sound smart. Raj Chetty is a Harvard-trained economist who's at Stanford. And that project looks at who gets patents as kind of an outcome variable of people's ability to contribute to the creative economy. And it's a good proxy variable for that. And it took, I think, third graders who got in the top 10% on their math exam, so it was controlling for aptitude. These were all smart, mathematically inclined third graders. And it looked ahead. I haven't read the article in a few years, but maybe 30 years, and it said, how many patents did the different demographics get? The white males got, I think, seven and a half or eight patents per thousand on average. And white females got something less than that, but still a significant number. And then, if you looked across people who have been disadvantaged and not given the privilege of participating in our economy as fully. You had numbers like one and two, and three. There was a New York Times article called The Lost Einsteins, which is worth looking at. It had good graphics, and I won't make up the numbers. But you know what? If we can get seven and a half patents out of one group and we only get two or three out of another, that's outrageous because society is leaving behind four patents per thousand. We're missing the opportunity for the social benefits, the medical benefits, the scientific benefits that that creativity reflects. And it's not a matter of penalizing the people who have had the opportunity to get their seven and a half or eight patents. It's a matter of how do we possibly think we're going to get ahead if we're leaving behind four or five or six patents to some of these demographic groups because we don't include them in the progress and education and opportunity. So, to me, the practical part is not that it predicts profitability or Tobin's or anything like that. That's great. So it predicts profitability and productivity to have a more diverse organization. That's something a manager can think about. But you and I are educators. We're thinking at a little bit higher level. And I think the college of business has to commit itself every day to getting those four darn patents we're missing, to getting all of those people engaged. They'll be having more fun. They'll be having personal prosperity. But you know what? Even from a purely selfish perspective, as a leader in the economy, we should be saying we want the darn four patents we've been missing.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think there's such a formula embedded into that, too, that shows us that this has to go beyond diversity. It's not just about bringing diverse people together. This is about cultivating an environment of equity and inclusion and belonging so that that work can then funnel up, can then bubble out. There's a bigger thing at play beyond just bringing diversity into your organization.

Todd Mooradian

It's not about penalizing the people who have had the opportunity to get those patents or to get through. Nobody loses if everybody has a chance to bring their information to the table.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely. I was going to ask you, how do you do that? How do you go beyond the business case that you gave us that answer? And I really like the very human things that you return to, to finding love in this work, to finding joy in this work. I think those are very important values. So I won't repeat that question, but going to sort of higher order thinking. As a dean, you're very much a broker. You're a broker of buy-in. And you are, in so many ways, I think, charged with the seemingly impossible task of aligning the competing views of diverse stakeholders. And in the case of DEI, those competing views often map onto conflicting value structures and worldviews, and ideologies. I know you as someone who is widely respected by people from all walks of life. So how have you developed such a great ability to gather people around a common initiative like this, where there are so many different or competing viewpoints?

Todd Mooradian

Well, again, I'm going to repeat that you're very generous. I hope I made a contribution. Most importantly, I feel challenged to make a significant contribution as the Mason School moves forward. And that's yet to be seen. That chapter is yet to be written, but I'm committed to it. I also think you were generous in saying I brought people together with different values. But that's our task, right? Bringing people together with consonant values is easy. So we'll go get everybody that thinks alike, and we'll be the expression preaching to the choir. But I do think that there's a way to do it, and I hope that lots of people will join me in this. And that way is to recognize. I started out with the story about my father and about Jim Kaplan deliberately. I'm a big sports fan. They were both deeply involved in athletics. My father was a coach and athletic director. Jim Kaplan built the arena named after him. I like that story. In sports, we find a fundamental idea about fairness. Nobody wants to win a game on a tilted field. It has to be profoundly dissatisfying if you find out you had an advantage because the court wasn't level. Everybody believes in fairness. And what I'd like to do moving forward, regardless of whether we've been successful doing it in the past, I want people like Phil Wagner and everybody else in the Mason School, all the students, all the staff, all the faculty to commit to finding the higher level values that we do share about fairness and opportunity, about giving everybody a chance to find their patent or their passion. And I want everybody to take joy from it. And if we are finding that, we may not believe in a specific policy about diversity, but, gosh, we are all committed to a level playing field, and we may not feel like that we are the advocate for one group or another, but we really believe in fairness, and everybody getting a full investment from society. Then we can come together. And actually, the story about New York is important, too. I'd like everybody in the Mason School of Business to find joy in being part of a place that embraces people. There's a campaign for LGBTQ teenagers that says it gets better. Don't you want the Mason School to be a part of that better? A place that young people come who haven't felt fully embraced by their society and find out that they're great and they're at home. And I don't know anybody in our building who wouldn't commit to that.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think our value structure really calls us to that at William & Mary. Those values of excellence, flourishing, belonging, curiosity, those really help us corral around those initiatives. I think those things work hand in hand. Dean Mooradian, I'm wondering if you can speak directly to our students. As you know, we're kicking off the fall semester. I'm getting ready to work with some 200 graduate students who are coming in as part of their soft skills and communications courses, getting training in inclusive leadership. Can you challenge them to think about DEI in the way that you think they ought to think about it? Why is DEI such an important part of their education and our curriculum, and our initiatives here? How do you recommend our students see DEI as part of their scope of leadership?

Todd Mooradian

It's principle. It aligns with the core values that I think are more broadly shared. I think we lose some of that when we wrap it up in particular language or recommending particular policies. Everybody has a principle of fairness. We talked about the practicality of it. We need those four or five patents that are lost when different groups don't get the privilege to grow into their potential. There's a joy of being in a diverse world. These are young leaders. They're going to be in a world that's diverse. Todd Mooradian didn't make that happen, nor did Phil Wagner. The world of the 21st century for professionals is going to be multicultural and diverse. Economic activity is going to be entwined at a global level, and they better learn to thrive in it. But most importantly, they come to us. They're wonderful. The young people that are joining us, I've spoken with four groups already this week. They're terrific. What I've told them is to make sure that while they're so busy getting these educations and doing their assignments and taking their tests and interviewing and working on their resume, that they also take a chance to step back and decide because we're giving them the tools to change the world. In fact, it's really inevitable that they will change the world.

Phil Wagner

And they do.

Todd Mooradian

They do. And what's important is, right from the get, they think about what changes do they want to be part of. And I think they want to be part of making a place that embraces everyone. I think that I've used the example in four speeches this week about the eulogy exercise that people do in leadership training. But at some point, and the earlier you do it, the better off you'll be. Think about the mark you want to leave because someday somebody's going to stand up and say, this is what this person was. This is how they made me feel. This is how they invested in me. And I think that by giving them the tools and the understanding to recognize their core values about fairness and embracing people and inclusion, their ethical commitment to it, and the joy they can take from it, we're going to help them. When they get to the end of that line, say, I'm proud of the mark I made.

Phil Wagner

Absolutely. All right, so final question for you. I'm a vision guy. We're all excited for the next season of the Mason School of Business, a place we know and love, even if you're an external listener. Clearly, you know, we're doing big things here. This is an exciting place to be. As dean, I'm wondering if you'd be willing to briefly lay out your vision for the Mason School of Business's future, a future that definitely is one defined by diversity of thought and identity and equity and inclusion and belonging. What do you think is on the horizon for us here?

Todd Mooradian

You said earlier that diversity and inclusion is consonant. It resonates with people at William & Mary cause it's a place that's been about ideas and about a breadth of perspectives for over three centuries. And fairly recently, we had Larry Pulley as our dean for 24 years, and I knew him for a good part of that 24 years. One of the most decent people that anyone is ever going to meet and one of the most dedicated to the College of William & Mary. I don't think the next generation is revolutionary as a break from any of that past 300 years of being a place, a Renaissance place, a place where polymaths thrive, and diverse perspectives are valued. I don't think we're going to be revolutionizing what we are from the last 25 years. We're going to build on a place that's dedicated to principled achievement, to use Larry Pulley's phrase. But I do think that what we want to be is a place that comes into the 21st century ready to make a renewed impact, be more relevant, and diversity, inclusion, along with an educational model that's based on breadth of perspective and multiple problem-solving paradigms, and a place dedicated to excellence in everything it does. A new vision will emerge. I didn't arrive with a vision, by the way. I'm more committed to listening right now than to telling people what my vision is. But I think that I know that I never lace them up to come in second. I've been an athlete, I've been a coach, I've been around coaching. Take the field as if you're going to be the very best. And I think that the next vision for Mason School should be that we find a way to be the very best in the world at what we do. And I think there's a white space for a business school to be extraordinary at teaching. A lot of higher education institutions take teaching for granted. So give people a book and put them in the classroom. We can invest deliberately in being a great place for teaching. I think there's room in the world for a place that takes impactful research seriously because too much research has drifted off into incremental knowledge that only your colleagues around the academy read. I think there's a place in the world for a business school that's dedicated to this model of a Renaissance person who is broadly educated and deeply educated, kind of the T-shaped person. I don't see anybody else doing that. But William & Mary is better than anyone at the world at that. And we can take a lead and define ourselves. And I think there's a place in the world for a business school that says we prepare people for a diverse and changing world where they learn to thrive, they learn to express their values, and they learn to take joy from the diversity of other people.

Phil Wagner

Love it. That's inclusive leadership in action. Dean Mooradian, thank you for your time, for your insights, for all you do and are going to do in partnership with us in the years ahead. It's truly been a pleasure speaking with you here. Thanks so much for kicking off season two of our podcast with us.

Todd Mooradian

I have a feeling you got a lot of editing to do, Phil.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What disability accommodations existed before the passage of the ADA
• What challenges led up to the implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
• What is the Americans with Disabilities Act and what does it accomplish
• How the ADA has impacted students' lives
• How the ADA has evolved over the years
• How William & Mary works with staff and faculty to determine what accommodations are necessary
• The challenges working in Human Resources for a large university
• What have been the biggest challenges as the ADA has continued to expand
• How COVID has affected disability accommodations in the workplace

Transcript

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun.

Phil Wagner

Friends. Happy summer. By now, I hope you've gone back and listened to our other two specially featured summer Student Takeover episodes. If you missed them, we're releasing the work of some of our students from our spring 22 Diversity in the Workplace course, and we wanted to give you something to listen to as we plan for our own season two here, which drops in just a few weeks. The third episode that we'll feature today. Features Alicia Scott, Maddie George, and Bella Easton talking to us just a little bit more about disability accommodations. Again, we've got some exciting episodes planned for next season with topics spanning from natural hair to dignity to whiteness, not settling for status quo in the DEI space and beyond. We're going to really go there, but until then, buckle up. I hope you've enjoyed the Summer Student Takeover episodes as much as I have. Thanks for listening. Without further ado, here's Alicia, Maddie, and Bella.

Alicia Scott

On today's podcast, we are going to be discussing disability accommodations. Your hosts today are myself, Alicia Scott.

Bella Easton

Bella Easton,

Maddie George

and Maddie George.

Alicia Scott

All of us are taking the course Diversity in the Workplace, and because of that, we were incredibly interested in this topic. During our podcast, we're going to be hitting on three main topics. The first being disability legislation. The second administrative realm of disability. And third, looking towards the future with disability accommodations. We hope that from this podcast and the conversations and interview that we have. That you're able to walk away after listening, being able to identify key issues facing legislation regarding disability accommodations. To have a better understanding of how the conversation of disability accommodation fits into both administrative and a little bit into personal spaces within the workplace. And then in addition to that, we hope that you have a better understanding of the future outlook of disability accommodations through current debates after the ADA was passed and how the interpretation of the ADA has changed over time. So we're going to be hitting on quite a few things today, so we hope that you're able to come along with us and learn as we do throughout this podcast. So to hit on that first topic. Of disability legislation, we felt that it was really important to go ahead and take a look at what existed prior to today's circumstances.

Maddie George

Yeah, so I know that I am talking about the ADA, which was passed for disability accommodations, but Alicia, what did that look like? Was there any legislation before the ADA that I didn't see, or what was life like before that was passed?

Alicia Scott

Yeah, that's a great question. So I was looking into what existed before the ADA, and there was something it was called Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. What this act did, it was actually the first disability civil rights law that was enacted in our country here in the United States. And what that did is it prohibited the discrimination against people with disabilities and programs that specifically received federal financial assistance. So there's that kind of, like, big disclaimer there as a part of that act.

Maddie George

Oh, man. Well, okay. Before we get into any more legislation and stuff, can we just take a second to think about what it would be like to have no accommodations at all for your life? If you're somebody with a disability and you're going in for a job, or you're going in just to do normal, everyday activities, and there's nothing for you to do that, is that not crazy?

Alicia Scott

It definitely is. Also, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about the name, and it's literally in the title. It's 1973 was not that long ago either. There was nothing before that. That is honestly quite frightening, truly.

Bella Easton

Well, in speaking of before, were there any challenges leading up to the implementation of Section 504?

Alicia Scott

Yes, absolutely. That's probably why it took so long. And why it only started in 1973 that we had this section added. I did a lot of digging into that, and I think the kind of most interesting information I found came from the article from The New York Times titled before the ADA, there was Section 504, and it was published July 22 of, 2020, by Julia Carmel. In this article, they really talked about kind of what it meant to have this section passed and enacted and how much they struggled to have it passed. So just to kind of touch on that a little bit, it's incredible to have the section at that time, and it's actually quoted in the article that Section 504 operated on a social model of disability that focuses not on a person's impairment, but on the ways in which their surroundings could better accommodate their needs. So I just thought that was very powerful, and I wanted to share that from the very start before I kind of get further into the specifics. But honestly, reading that, it's just crazy how long it took for this to become enacted. The action to have this pass was delayed for years, and even though it seems so successful afterwards, we really have to appreciate what it took to get that passed. Individuals were protesting around the country because this had just been sitting around. No one was pushing or moving it forward. And I want to share specifically about the protests that were occurring in San Francisco to get this pushed forward because what they actually did was they protested and they stayed inside one of the federal buildings, and they were in there and lived there, not expecting to have to do this, but they were there for almost an entire month. And that ended up being one of the longest occupations of a federal building in U.S. History. and the reason this came to be was because when they went, and they started their protests, the individuals that were working in the spaces, one specifically being Mr. Califano, and when they went to discuss this issue with him, they were met with reasoning along the lines of, we've never heard of this. We didn't know about this. So they wanted to make sure that everyone knew about it. So they stuck around, and it ended up being an entire month. It was insane. The federal government tried to really get them out and deter protesters by cutting off the building phone lines, their water supply. But luckily, other people in the community were incredibly supportive of these protests. To help push this along, the city's mayor was actually sending over mattresses and trying to arrange portable showers for the protesters. Also, other members of different organizations were supporting them. One kind of large group, actually two, included the Black Panther Party and the Gray Panthers. And they would bring the protesters supplies, and they've cooked meals for them. So even though the federal government was trying to shut down the protests, other organizations were really supporting these protesters, helping them to get recognition for Section 504 that they were trying to push through. And after a ton of work and a ton of effort, and a ton of grit on the people's part for being there protesting for so long, on April 28 of, 1977, the regulation was implemented, and this was such a huge win for not only the protesters but our entire nation. And this then applied to federally funded buildings. And while that doesn't seem like a lot, there really wasn't much there before. And we just talked about how crazy that is, that there wasn't anything before that. So this was such a huge win. On their part, because it then laid the groundwork for the ADA to come after it.

Maddie George

Yeah, and that's crazy. Just touching again on just appreciating everything that went into it and everything that still goes into it now. And we'll touch on that in a minute, but we should all just take a second and appreciate our history. But going into the ADA, first off, I'm going to just start off with a definition of what the ADA is. And it stands for Americans with Disabilities Act. In an overall broad definition, it prevents discrimination against those with disabilities. And when it first came out, it basically advances questions related to disabilities on job applications, provides for greater accessibility to public buildings and transportation, and requires employers to reasonably accommodate employees and job applicants. It also made requiring medical examinations before a job offer, unlawful and limited disability-related questions, and medical examinations on employees. So that was a broad overview of what it did initially, which was a huge step, and the Rehabilitation Act was also a huge step, but going just a step further in accommodations was super important. A little story, there is a female. I read an article on a lot of the information that I looked up. It was the ADA at 30 Looking Back and Ahead, published May 27 of, 2020, by SHRM.org, and basically, a story was Amy Shearer. She was the first attendee of Furman University in a wheelchair, and accommodations were made. She said that she could live in a dorm resulting from accommodation requirements by the ADA, and that wouldn't have been a thing if it wasn't passed, and she wouldn't have been able to go to school and feel more like a normal student beforehand, which is awesome. Kind of looking back at it and taking a second to think about she is the first student who there's a disability accommodation for. It must have been so scary and nerve-wracking. And for the other students being there, I just think that that's a really interesting point to kind of take a second on.

Alicia Scott

That is one that's really worth taking a second on. I think also just thinking about all of us being college students and understanding the importance of just even sharing a living space and living in a dorm with one another. How many friendships and how many relationships do we build from that? I'm living with friends from my freshman hall, and I'm a senior now, so I have accommodations. They're creating for a more inclusive space where everyone can build those relationships. So it's crazy to think that that didn't exist before. And I'm glad that she fought it, and the ADA was there to back it up.

Maddie George

Yeah. And moving forward kind of into her life after she graduated. She stated that going into the workplace. Which is what we're talking about right now. She felt that she was focused less on her disability and more on her work abilities and she used provided public transportation to get to her work, and she was just she stated many of these things again. Like, could not happen without the ADA and without our history. So that was super cool. And again, we'll touch on this, but there is such a great area in there has been so much that has been done, and there still needs to be so much more that needs to be done. And so it's cool, as I was reading her story and a couple of others, just how wild it is that it has been possible over the years. But another thing that the ADA did, you know, it created more of a voice for people with disabilities to have a say in what accommodations are needed. There's a big broad spectrum, and we're still discovering it and looking through it and going back the 1990s and early 2000s, and again, this isn't that long ago, but due to the broad ruling of the original ADA, people with prosthetics were not considered for accommodations. Just as an example, which to me is crazy because they do need accommodations. So just kind of like one hold back. I guess over the years where people have been trying to decide under the realm of administration. You are, or you aren't disabled. And what does that really look like? Just looking at the broad spectrum of what is a disability. What isn't? And I really don't think that's our place to say it's more so what do you need and what does that look like for you? So I think that we made a lot of progress from the 1990s and 2000s with being more open to what that looks like for individuals, which I think is awesome. And legislation-wise, the ADAA mended this problem a little bit. And there was an emphasis on reasonable accommodations centering the broad definition to the needs of people with disability, which, again, is the most important thing, in my opinion.

Bella Easton

So, yeah, touching on the ADAA a little bit. Its name is the Americans with Disabilities Amendment Act. And one of the things that it also touches on is temporary impairments. So whether someone is sick or if they break a limb, or if they're going through any sort of problem, there's currently a debate as to whether or not these temporary impairments are qualified as a disability and if they should be protected by the ADA. And so, it's expanded the definition of a disability to include temporary impairments if they're sufficiently severe, but its guidelines have been somewhat unhelpful. Some courts, however, ultimately protect even episodic impairments. Since the purpose of the ADA is to protect disabled workers, there is inherently subjective reasoning necessary to decide whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity. So whether you have the flu or again, if you break something, if you can't lift anything heavy, if you can't walk or be on your feet for extended periods of time, this is something that's really important to help employees in their day to day life.

Maddie George

Yeah. And so that's super interesting. Just, again, like the advancements that we've made under the realms of legislation, but again, kind of going into the fact that it's difficult to make universal accommodations for people whenever you're in administration because every disability is different. And so with that, joining us is Debbie Howe, who works in this realm of accommodations in the workplace for administration.

Bella Easton

Okay. Hello, everybody. Today, right now, we are interviewing with Ms. Howe is the Deputy Chief Human Resources Officer at the school. Ms. Howe, thank you so much for being here with us to discuss administration in the realm of disability accommodations in the workplace. We're excited to have you.

Debbie Howe

My pleasure. Glad to be here.

Alicia Scott

Thank you so much again. And we kind of wanted to start off by chatting from a more kind of general standpoint first, and we wanted to know what it looks like from the lens of administration to run, advise, and coordinate with accommodations in your position specifically.

Debbie Howe

Basically, we work with all the employees. So that includes faculty members, staff members. And if anybody needs accommodations, they can start off by having a conversation with us. And then we'll work with their doctor. We'll get information from their doctor for exactly what they need. But we try to be creative. We try to give people the kind of accommodations that will help them continue in their jobs. And we do have some options, particularly with the university, with some things that we can do that might not be available at other places. Basically, it's working with people and getting them what they need. I guess that's repeating the same thing over and over. But that's basically, and they can be a variety of accommodations. It doesn't have to be just there can be we have a golf cart service, so if people have trouble moving around campus, we have that option. We do have some people that work remotely occasionally or teach remotely due to accommodations. We can get people equipment that is really easy to do. We can also do different schedules for people. So there are different types of things based on need.

Bella Easton

Awesome. And what does that look like kind of day to day? What is your schedule like? Meetings and meeting with people to accommodate and all of that?

Debbie Howe

Well, I actually do the accommodations in addition to my job is to I manage the day-to-day functions in the HR office, the university HR. So I actually do employee relations, performance management. I'm over the talent acquisition, the recruitment, the benefits, and the ADA. So we do not have like every day, I don't have a whole bunch of people coming and asking for accommodations. Sometimes it comes in like it comes in groups or it's individually, but I will get an email, or we have an online system that we use that people can put a request in. I get that. Then I make sure that people give us the medical information. Then I try to have a conversation with people about what they need. Sometimes it's easy if it's simply just the golf cart service or if it's the piece of equipment. I can go ahead and buy that and take care of that for them. But if they need something that would be changed, a modification to their job, the hours they work or something like that, then I'll have a conversation with the supervisor, and if they're able to meet the accommodation, then we can go ahead and approve it. Otherwise, we'll have a meeting between myself, the supervisor, and the employee. And we'll kind of negotiate and see what we can do and what accommodation we can give the person and come up with something that works for all parties.

Bella Easton

Okay, awesome. So a lot of stuff under one day. You got a lot going on. So moving it back a little bit, what motivated you to do this work in the first place and in this position? How did you get here? What upbringing did you have or any background stories, or anything like that?

Debbie Howe

I've actually been in human resources for 33 years now, so I was in human resources when the ADA became a law. So I've been with it the whole time, actually longer than you guys have been alive, which is scary. But basically, it was actually interesting. I had gone to college and got my associates because I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I was taking community college classes and took an HR class and loved it. So then I started, I went back and got my Masters, I'm sorry, and then my Bachelor's, and then my Masters in HR. And then, I've had the opportunity to work in different areas of HR. And along the way, I've worked with ADA accommodations for most of my career, the different jobs that I've done, and I've had that. And I really enjoy with the ADA helping people and making sure that we can keep people working and keep them working productively. Because sometimes people, they just need a little bit of help in order to do the job or some accommodations or piece of equipment, otherwise they might have to quit, or they might have to go somewhere else. So that's the part I really enjoy, is helping the people and keeping them employed.

Alicia Scott

That's wonderful. That sounds great. And I also am curious, kind of on the flip side of that. So while there are these great benefits And you're able to help a lot of people and help them stay employed. Are there challenges that you also face on a daily basis and also things just in the general realm of HR, working with accommodations that you think has the largest room to grow?

Debbie Howe

The one challenge is that sometimes there are physical or mental issues that occur. And sometimes people, when they think of disabilities, they're thinking of people in wheelchairs or people with the white cane, and there are a number of disabilities that you just can't see. Mental health is a big area now, too, with that kind of disability. And sometimes it's really difficult because the person does not want to accept or acknowledge that physically, they cannot do things anymore, they really can't do the work, or they're having cognitive issues or things like that. So that is really hard when you kind of have to have those difficult conversations with people, and it's like this may not be the right job for you anymore, but then you can kind of talk about what might be other options. Is there something else they can do here? Is it more that they're going to have to go somewhere else? Or sometimes we've had people that just because of the decline physically, they've had to retire. And those are just hard. And it's hard just admitting to yourself sometimes that you can't, particularly if you worked your whole life or if financially you need to work, or you need to work to have the benefits. And that can be a catch-22 also, because if you stop working, then you don't have your health insurance. And if you do have medical issues, you need your health insurance. So some of that and also when people first give their accommodation request in the medical documentation, the first thing we have to do is determine if they're a qualified person with a disability. So we have to determine because you have to be able to do the essential functions with or without accommodation. And sometimes people don't quite understand that, but they're not able to do the essential functions, and so, therefore, we're just not able to accommodate them. So those are some of the challenges with it. It's not always easy.

Alicia Scott

No, it doesn't sound easy at all. Those definitely sound very challenging. And I also wasn't aware about making sure that you have to be able to do like, certain functions. I just kind of thought it was a catch-all. So that's really great to know. Thank you.

Bella Easton

Yeah, and it's definitely interesting because a lot of it seems like a big gray area, and working through that is definitely a challenge. But where have you seen the most growth and success over the years? You said 33 years. Did you say you've been in this work? And from the beginning of the introduction of the ADA to now, what have processes look like? Kind of an administration, but also with those personal kind of stories that you've had, what does that look like? Where's the growth and challenges?

Debbie Howe

It did get amended. I can't remember the year right now that the ADA was amended. So it actually has been expanded since it was originally put out in 1990. The law was signed in 1990. There are some that it was hard because, at first, you had, particularly when you didn't have disabilities that people could see. Then you had people that were thinking the person was faking it, or they were getting a doctor to write up something for them, or they were trying to get something solely in order to make the job easier or to have an easier time. So the mindset shift. That has shifted a lot over the years. There is more respect and understanding of disabilities, particularly mental health, mental disabilities. It's also kind of interesting because sometimes there is kind of a tension in the disabled community between the more visible disabilities and the less visible, and sometimes that's kind of interesting to see. But I think that the biggest growth is the fact of people understanding and more respecting people with disabilities and seeing beyond the disabilities. It's still hard. There are certain disabilities where it's still, I think, harder for them to find jobs or to have employment. But I've been lucky with the employers I've had. They've all been very supportive of doing accommodations, and we've never had anything where we're trying to get around it, which is very good.

Bella Easton

I just have one more little follow-up question because we heard a story in class where there was a man, and he was in a wheelchair, and of course, just the stigma behind that is always challenging in the workplace. But then COVID Zoom calls, and everything were all that we did, and so everybody saw chest up, and so that kind of went away for a little bit. Have you seen like a lot of that in your work or anything like that or anything similar?

Debbie Howe

Not so much with COVID. The one thing COVID did is we had some people that prefer to work remotely, and it's easier for them. Just mobility issues. Sometimes it's easier if you don't have to leave the house. So I know those individuals appreciated that, and some of them do not want to come back into the office, which is hard. I didn't notice that as much. But it's funny, we're still doing some meetings and things remotely, so there could be people with disabilities. You don't see them, so you don't know, like wheelchair or something like that. You wouldn't know. Or even if you can't see, you would notice that as much on a Zoom call, you might think the person's just looking up at something else.

Alicia Scott

As many people happened to do when you're on Zoom calls. Yeah. I also had an additional follow-up question, but I think it's interesting our minds like went in different directions with sharing how things have kind of changed and adapted, especially with people being more understanding and not thinking of it as someone trying to use it as an advantage, but somebody that's actually just making experience equitable. So I was wondering with that, what do you think has driven that change? Is it a matter of people learning more about personal stories and narratives, or do you think there's something else that's kind of pushed that along to grow over time?

Debbie Howe

I do think it's more people listening. And sometimes, some of these employment laws, I don't necessarily think people have bad intent. I think people are just kind of oblivious or don't think about it sometimes. And so when you have these laws, and you have to follow them, you look more at it, and you consider it more. But I also think just overall. I've seen more with people that are disabled are talking about it more. They're coming out and discussing, and they're actually using different words like ableism or different things like that, that they're taking away a lot of the stigmas by coming out and talking about them. And as you have some people that are celebrities or things like that, that are doing things even if they have these disabilities, that also helps too. But I think a lot of it is it's just people are noticing more and talking more about it. And that's a good thing.

Maddie George

Yeah, definitely, absolutely.

Alicia Scott

Well, we wish we could stay and chat for a whole hour about all of this. We are a little restricted for time when it comes to a podcast, and now long listeners are willing to keep listening. So before we end today, is there any final thought that you would like listeners to know about how accommodations for disability work in the workplace? And especially with diversity, equity, and inclusion work, is there kind of one thing you wish that more people would know?

Debbie Howe

I think one of the biggest things is you can't make assumptions. You can look at a person, and just because they're in a wheelchair, you can't make assumptions about what they can and cannot do.

Maddie George

Absolutely.

Debbie Howe

And sometimes people try to be super helpful, and that person really wants to do it themselves. So it's more you need to ask people and listen to them. If they say, no, I've got it, listen and let them be. So I think that's part of it too, is don't make assumptions about people.

Alicia Scott

True. I think that's great advice for this space specifically, but also just great advice in general. So that's a fantastic note for us to end on today. Thank you again so much, Ms. Howe, for being here with us today. We really appreciate your time and perspectives.

Debbie Howe

Thank you. Anytime.

Bella Easton

Yes, thank you so much.

Alicia Scott

It was so fantastic to hear from Ms. Howe's perspective of actually working in the administrative space herself.

Maddie George

Yes.

Alicia Scott

Honestly, I think it's so easy for us to kind of assume what that would be like, but to actually hear from a first-hand perspective, I think it helps me to really better understand. What it's like and what challenges someone faces in the workplace when working from the administrative side with this legislation in place.

Maddie George

Yes, it was very nice just to get some insight on all of that and kind of go into the future with it in mind.

Alicia Scott

Absolutely. So we've heard from now the administrative side. So I'm kind of wondering, do you guys have any ideas from more the personal side when you're requesting accommodations? What barriers exist there for the individuals?

Bella Easton

Yeah, so Frank and Beline did a study on people requesting accommodation, specifically people who are blind, and they said that common barriers that they found were broken trust, the fact that there are so many barriers, fear of retaliation, problems with technology, and the fact that they are blind people. There's so much paperwork involved with accommodations anyways, and they fear that negative responses to accommodation would inhibit further requests. And so, according to the ADA, failure to provide accommodations is a form of disability discrimination. But despite that, there's little benefit for those who file a complaint against their employer for failing to provide accommodations. And also, it's common for the clients to be blamed for their lack of accommodations rather than as a result of their work environment. This hostile attitude towards people with disabilities can be very harmful, not only for those with disabilities but for people in the future who are trying to create more legislation supporting them. There's also something known as a direct threat concept, which entails that the employee has a medical condition that poses too much of a safety risk for the employee to work in a particular position. And there exists a debate as to whether it's an affirmative defense that the employer must prove or whether a qualified employee with a disability must prove that they can safely perform all job functions and that they're not a threat. This perceived threat is required to be correct but should be objectively reasonable. It's common for employers to consult with doctors to determine whether these accommodations can be feasible to limit dangers that people with disabilities and people without disabilities may face. In addition, there's been a study about people with disabilities in the hiring process, and when hiring, there seems to be a lack of discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas except for their wage. In fact, less than 33% of people with disabilities are employed, compared to the 73.5% of people the same age without disabilities. An empirical evidence shows that despite ambivalent views of employees with disabilities, they earn a starting salary that is significantly lower than their non-disabled peers.

Maddie George

Man, that is so crazy. And it's very interesting just to see the differences between people with disability and not. And even though accommodations have been put in place, there's still a lot of ways to go. But I know this is going into all conversations now, I feel like, in our lives. But I'm going to ask the question, what impact did COVID-19 have on all of this under the realm of accommodations for disabilities in the workplace?

Bella Easton

Yeah, so great question. Obviously, the ADA was passed in the 90s, and the internet wasn't as big of a part of our life as it is now. And so because of this and the fact that so many things have moved online from school to shopping to even eating. Now there are different interpretations of the ADA scope. Some people believe that the ADA applies to physical entities only, like when you go to the store or sit down in a restaurant. The ADA could also apply to a website or mobile app that has a sufficient nexus to a physical place, things like DoorDash or Uber eats. And others think that the ADA should apply to everything beyond physical spaces into online technology. And due to societal changes stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, ADA protections should finally adapt and apply to website accessibility discrimination so that people with any sort of disability are able to access life just like everyone else.

Maddie George

All right. Wow. Well, that is awesome. It's so interesting, again, to see the gray area. There's so much of it. And figuring that out, what does that look like? And I hope that you guys, as listeners, were able to get a little bit of insight on what it may look like identifying key issues facing legislations regarding disability accommodations. Better understanding the conversation of accommodations in the workplace and how that fits into administrative spaces. Then lastly again, just better understanding the future outlook of disability accommodations through current debates after the ADA has passed and how that interpretation has changed over time. And just one last thought. And if you guys have anything. You're welcome to input it. But we hope that you now go into your day and look around and see what accommodations there are and have been put in place and just kind of take a second to appreciate what all has gone and happened under legislation and under just people protesting and whatever that may look like. But also what's missing in accommodations in the workplace and life just all around us. There's so much. And just one last thought how do you think that we can make our workplaces more inclusive and equitable for all individuals?

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What it means to be transgendered
• Why Lia Thomas's victory has been so controversial
• Isaac Henning's experiences as a trans athlete
• The view Michael Phelps has on transgendered athletics
• How integration is not equal to inclusion in the workplace

Transcript

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun.

Phil Wagner

Hi all. Welcome to episode two of our mini Summer Student Takeover arc. If you missed my tee-up last time, go back and listen to the last special Student Takeover episode on the gender pay gap from Will Casale, Tasia Ricks, and Katherine Davis. But if you missed the note, we're taking a little bit of a summer sabbatical step-back plan and record season two. Keep an eye out for exciting updates soon. In the meantime, I wanted to give you something to chew on. So we've released three special episodes as part of a Student Takeover. These episodes stem from work completed in our spring 22 Diversity in the Workplace course. And in this second episode, you'll hear from Katie Stevenson, Mohammad Ali, and Eugenio Masari as they explore issues of gender identity within athletics. They're joined by a special guest and offer some really interesting insight. We have given them full control, and all perspectives expressed in the episode are theirs and theirs alone, but we hope you enjoy the discussion. So, without further ado, summer Student Takeover Episode Two Katie, Eugenio. Mohammad, take it over.

Katie Stevenson

Hi, everyone, what is up? Welcome back to Over Sit, where we break down our understanding and talk about controversial topics that foster so many polarizing opinions from people that tend to stand and talk before they sit down and listen. My name is Katie Stevenson, I'm one of your hosts, and I'm a junior here at William & Mary on the swim team.

Mohammad Ali

And my name is Mohammad Ali, and I'm a sophomore currently here at William & Mary.

Eugenio Masari

Hello. My name is Eugenio. I am one of the other cohosts. I'm also a sophomore here at William & Mary, and I'm on the varsity swim team.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah, guys. So we're sitting here today because this past March, we witnessed one of the most controversial sporting finishes in recent memory. When an individual, Lia Thomas, captured a Division One national championship in women's swimming. But she did so as the first openly transgender athlete to do so.

Eugenio Masari

Before we dive in swimming pond, pun intended, we should make sure to define for audience what it means to be a transgender. A transgender woman is a woman who was assigned a male gender at birth. This constant internal struggle of having to prove your own gender to yourself and to societal standards is something that transgender individuals constantly have to battle with. Actually, we know that one in every 250 people come out as transgender in the U.S. But that number is likely to be much higher with how many individuals decide to conceal their identity in fear of not opening up to others and being rejected.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, and Lia Thomas is actually not the first trans swimmer to compete in the NCAA. So it's very interesting to me. Why is it that her story is blowing up? We know of over two dozen trans athletes that have competed in college sports, but Lia Thomas's story has been propelled into the public eye as a result of her dominance and victories in women's swimming.

Mohammad Ali

Right, I totally agree. I think that if you look at Lia Thomas's success like in a vacuum, you would think that she should be celebrated and she should be applauded. But instead, she's met with incredible amounts of scrutiny and hostility from the media, from people and family attending the competitions, from her competitors, and even from her own peers and teammates.

Katie Stevenson

Scrutiny from her own teammates. As a swimmer myself, that must be so hard to compete confidently because team dynamic is so important in a team sport. We learned, if you guys remember, in our diversity and inclusion class, that when individuals seemingly possess undesirable traits quote, such as larger bodies or a gluten allergy, it becomes difficult for individuals to be productive because they're rejected by their peers, which can affect their productivity and which impacts the company.

Mohammad Ali

Yes, I totally agree. And if we look at the scrutiny itself that Lia's facing, it's rooted in the perception that Lia Thomas possesses an unfair advantage that stems from the hormone balance and testosterone differences between male and females that people believe present benefits to individuals that simply can't be erased through treatment. And so we've seen that the perspectives from credible individuals out in the world, such as Michael Phelps, someone who's a decorated athlete, who has sided against Lia and argues that there needs to be an even playing field within the sport. So clearly, the sports world has completely erupted, and with so many people expressing their opinions on Lia and her decision and speculating on what she should and should not be doing, but we believe it's important to provide a forgotten perspective in this whole story, which is the perspective, Lia Thomas.

Eugenio Masari

Yeah. I was actually currently reading a Sport Illustrated article, and when asked about the situation, Lia said, I'm a woman just like anybody else on the team. I've always viewed myself as just a swimmer. It's what I've done for so long. It's what I love. I want to swim and compete as who I am. Lia's early struggle to maintain her identity while pursuing her passion led her to pursue hormone replacement therapy for a year, which was required by the NCAA prior to competing against other women.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. And so clearly, you see that she was abiding by the stipulations that had already been provided by the NCAA to allow athletes to change their gender identity or their gender categories. So just to be clear, Lia was doing everything right, but because of the COVID sort of outbreak in 2020, it derailed her whole 2020 to 2021 season, and she found herself on HRP again. Hormone replacement treatment for more than two years when only one is required.

Eugenio Masari

Yeah. Lia clearly overly abided by the oldest stipulation provided by the NCAA. However, she's still faced with this constant scrutiny about her decision to participate against other female athletes. Although she attempted to remain optimistic about the situation and effort to pave a path for future young trans athletes, there is little doubt on the impact of the constant negative attention on the young athletes mental health. An obstacle day to day routine, unlike any other collegiate athletes.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, and I've seen, along with the occasional social media threats and negativity, which Lia has forced to limit her participation in social media. The negativity is especially prevalent in actual competitions and among Lia's own team. This disapproval of a few teammate parents started in the early 2021 to 2022 season, the season in which she was able to return after transitioning, like we mentioned, having two and a half years of the hormone, which is more than the one that was required. And when letters of Penn Swim parents were sent to the NCAA to remove Thomas from women's competitions, this must have been horrible for Lia. These letters were fueled with arguments about her puberty as a male, giving her, quote, larger hands, feet, greater bone density, and a greater lung capacity.

Eugenio Masari

Right. And just to think about how your teammates think about you must be an extraordinarily uncomfortable situation. An example of their discontent was proved by 16 of her teammates, which kept sending letters to Ivy League officials requesting Thomas to be ineligible from competing in the conference championship because they said she could now break Penn, Ivy, and NCAA women's swimming records. Feats that she could not have done as a male athlete.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah, and if you look at the sentiments from her teammates that sort of circulated the whole season, they jeopardize the chemistry, the camaraderie of the team. They jeopardize the chemistry and the camaraderie of the team itself. And we've actually heard from Lia's own teammates, such as Hadley DeBruyn, saying that sometimes it doesn't even feel like a team. So these actions are against Lia. We're just a few examples of many that we just wanted to point out, but it doesn't tell the whole story. But what we wanted to do was just simply highlight the perspective of Lia Thomas so viewers can come to a more holistic view in interpreting and judging the situation.

Katie Stevenson

Right, Mohammed. That leads me into a very exciting time. I'm so excited to introduce Isaac Henning, a Yale swimmer who is currently transitioning from female to male and has swam with Lia multiple times at Ivy League championships and NCAA Championship. Isaac is here to share his experience in the swimming world and will leave us with such valuable insight into how we can best support him and other transgender athletes. All right, Isaac, thank you so much for taking the time out of your crazy final schedule to meet with us briefly. How are finals in school going?

Isaac Henning

Thanks for having me. Finals are going alright. We start at the end of the week, so hopefully, looking good.

Katie Stevenson

Well, best of luck.

Isaac Henning

Thanks.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah. So thank you for coming on today. Would you like to do a quick introduction on who you are, hometown, things like that?

Isaac Henning

Yeah, absolutely. My name is Isaac Henning. I'm a junior at Yale. I use him pronouns. I'm also on the swim team. I do some work on campus around communication and consent, and I also am an Earth and planetary science major.

Katie Stevenson

Oh, very cool.

Isaac Henning

I'm in California. So I'm super excited to be here today to talk to you guys.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, awesome. So I guess just to start off, we'll give you a little insight into what we've been doing this semester. So we've been talking a lot about how important inclusion is to a successful, functioning group. So we're in like a business class of how the workplace, in order for it to be successful, everyone needs to be working together and feeling included. There's an example in a case study about how a coworker was gluten-free, and the allergy options were much worse than the pasta and pizza. They felt like the nonallergy people, and the coworker felt really unwelcoming and not wanting to be part of this group anymore. So are you able to speak at this at all? And has there been a time in your own life where you didn't feel comfortable or the welcoming environment which may have hindered your ability to perform? Or like, on the flip side, if you had a really welcoming environment and that really positively affected your ability, whether that's like workplace or school or job?

Isaac Henning

Yeah, definitely. I've been super lucky in that a lot of the spaces that I am in on campus have been super supportive of me. My team especially has been wonderful. The coaches were great. At this point, I came out to them over a year ago, and they were super supportive at the time. One of my coaches even cried on the call. I won't tell you which one it is because they'll get embarrassed, but just like super supportive. And so that really allowed me to have the season of my life. This last year. I was super grateful for how it went and for how my team responded, and I think them going out of their way to respect me and how I am, it was really lovely.

Katie Stevenson

That's so great to hear. Yeah, you crushed it. That was so awesome.

Isaac Henning

Thank you.

Katie Stevenson

I saw a picture, and you had written on your arm with like sharpie because there was a rule against you. I forget what it was about. Political something, and you found a way around it, the article said. Can you talk about that at all? That was awesome.

Isaac Henning

Yeah, for sure. The background as to why it was written on my skin is because the NCAA has pretty specific messaging around things that could be political or policy-related on uniforms, but absolutely nothing at all about what you can have on your skin. For me, the idea of, because there was so much media coverage coming into N.C.s, having the opportunity to just share a message of inclusivity, it doesn't need to be political. It's just kids are kids. They should play sports. They should have community. I think you guys, as athletes, understand, you need that. You need a group of people who's going to stick by you. You're going to learn how to work as a team and all of those important skills. Every single kid should be able to access those in a way that makes them feel comfortable. And so it was a no-brainer for me to write that and have it.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, What you said about having like I feel like in sports, we learned so much from our teams, and we carry that into like I carry into school all the time. And in professional work, is there like, a skill from your sport that you feel you use the most or like, you will use the most, like, soft skill?

Isaac Henning

Yeah. No, it's a good question. I think, honestly, not to be too topical, but kind of finding connections with people no matter what, sometimes someone walks in, and you're like, wow, I just can't stand this person. They're breathing, and it annoys me. But finding ways to connect with them, you go from feeling that way to being someone's friend, and I think that's really powerful and really cool to foster connections across disagreements or differences in belief.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah. I was just curious, how are the reactions to let trans kids play? Like, the message you wrote on your arm? Was it positively surprising, or like there's some people that gave you weird stares at all?

Isaac Henning

No, I wish I could answer that question. It was sort of one of those things where I'm notorious for being completely in my own world, especially at some meets. So if people were looking at me weirdly, I didn't really know, but the people who came up to me, for the most part, were really supportive.

Katie Stevenson

That's so great to hear.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. Isaac, kind of going back to your point. You said you came out a year ago to your, like, your coaches and your team. So from my understanding, you sort of went through this transition during COVID, right? You said you took a year off, and you had a lot of time on your hands to sort of come to groups with your identity. And so, if you don't mind, could you talk about that journey that you went on to come to accept your identity? And you talk about if it was difficult growing up in a body that didn't necessarily coincide with how you actually felt.

Isaac Henning

Yeah, absolutely. It's a good amount there. I could probably talk about that for a while, but the sort of short summary of it is like, I came home because of COVID. I decided to take a year because I wanted to be able to swim all four years of college. And then I was in a really bad place. I'm not going to lie to you. And so having just a therapist who I love and adore, and having the time to be able to sort of reflect and understand why like things felt so hard was really powerful. And there was a moment where are you guys familiar with the idea of a binder? So it's an article of clothing that sort of compresses your chest, and so that is used to combat dysphoria in a lot of FTM trans people. And I put one on for the first time, and I tried on every single piece of clothing in my wardrobe, and I was like, am I allowed to curse?

Katie Stevenson

Go for it.

Isaac Henning

I was like, holy shit. This is exactly how I imagined all of my clothes fitting, right? And so that was a moment for me. I was like, okay, I'm starting to understand how much this affects me, how deeply I hold this. It was not the first time that I had voiced even this feeling. I had had similar feelings in 8th grade but wasn't really ready to accept that reality, especially given the cultural opinions at the time. I think it's easier to come out when I have more confidence in myself and when there's been more trans people just in general, in the media and then public sort of view. Yeah. I don't know if that answers your question.

Mohammad Ali

Thank you.

Katie Stevenson

I love that story. That's awesome.

Eugenio Masari

Yeah. I also want to ask about maybe like an uncomfortable topic, but how are you able to deal with adversity in the past and deal with adversity is probably going to come face you in the future. I feel like everyone goes through adversity, but definitely. I believe in your place you might have to face more. But yeah, I just wanted to ask simple question like that.

Isaac Henning

Yeah, it's a good question, and it's definitely something that I am still figuring out. I'm super lucky to have really great friends, supportive family and coaches, and team, and so leaning on them has been wonderful. And then I also am lucky enough to have a level of comfort with myself where it gets easier to deal with adversary because I feel very secure.

Katie Stevenson

Okay, this is kind of a random question, but if there was one character trait that you wish every single person in the entire world had, what would it be?

Isaac Henning

Self-Confidence.

Katie Stevenson

Good answer.

Isaac Henning

I think it's more powerful than we sometimes give it credit for. I think that it lets people feel more comfortable. And when people are more comfortable, they're more able to hear. They're more able to listen and hear things that might challenge their held beliefs. I like to believe that no one in this world sets out to be hateful. And so I think if people felt more confident in themselves and in their knowledge and might open the door for open discussions, open mind, rather than feeling a need to cling to belief so tightly that you can't hear anything that might challenge them.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah. Wow, that's great. Mohammed and Eugenio, what would you guys say? Do you have any thoughts?

Mohammad Ali

No, I agree. I definitely agree. Self-confidence is really important characteristic for people to have.

Katie Stevenson

I was thinking also, like, empathy was a good one. We talked a lot about that in the workplace too.

Eugenio Masari

Compassion as well, I would say. We don't like each other enough. I think humanity just doesn't really collide. I also wanted to ask you a question regarding I don't know if you know like Michael Phelps perspective on the topic of transition. Especially in the swimming world. But obviously, he was rather against it. Which for me, it's quite unbelievable, and it shouldn't be the case. But I think he claimed that there should be like an even playing of field for people to be in the same sport. But at the same time, he was genuinely gifted because he had to say but like longer arms. Like shorts. Longer torso or stuff like that. How would you perceive it's kind of like a hypocrite perspective? If we really think about it.

Isaac Henning

Yeah, it's a good question. And I think that it's always hard because you want to be able to turn to experts when you're forming opinions. I think you identified it and that we're much more able to, like, as a society, accept, like, genetic differences when it comes along with things that we are used to. Don't feel as so foreign, but being born taller, being born with a longer arm span, you know, those are genetic advantages. And like, no matter how you come to have that advantage over your competitors, there's no such thing as even playing fields in sport. Right. We are all college athletes. We're all taller, stronger, more able to do something than someone else that we raced in high school, someone else that we raced when we were younger. And so, for me, I think it's much more about understanding that trans people are people and they should be able to come to their sports in the same ways and we should celebrate them just as much and we should have just as much understanding and willingness to be like. Wow. That's a phenomenal athlete. And just be able to respect athleticism when it comes to us, regardless of what form.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah, if you don't mind Eugenio, if I could ask mine now. So, sort of going back to Eugenio's first question. Yesterday, Isaac, we actually talked a lot about the perception of Lia's transformation on her own team, how people felt about it. So, like, we know that you sort of competed alongside Lia in a competition, and sort of could you just talk about the environment, the atmosphere, in terms of the fans, and if you hear the heckling and how that impacts maybe your ability to compete or do you think it takes a toll on you? What would you say about the atmosphere of these competitions?

Isaac Henning

Yeah, I can't comment on Lia's experience. She's a great friend of mine. I love her to death. I'm not sure what her team looks like internally, but for me personally, yeah, it's tough where you always have in the back of your mind, like, oh, these people don't want to support me. But then it's like, that's not really that different. Like, there are always going to be people who are cheering for the opposing team, for someone else who you're racing. And at the end of the day, it's just swimming. Right. We're just out here to have a good time, go fast, see what we can do. It doesn't need to be so heavy. And I think that's how I sort of found my way through it.

Katie Stevenson

You're so mature.

Mohammad Ali

I think probably his experience also helped him with that, having to deal with diversity. So you have to mature. A lot of people don't have to deal with this.

Katie Stevenson

But it's not that it's a sport. We're all just here to play. I was going to ask about the hecklers that maybe have never been involved with swimming until they see one article in a newspaper. I personally find that a little bit frustrating to the swimming community.

Isaac Henning

Yeah. As swimmers, I'm sure you're familiar with this whole joke that once every four years for about a week, everyone becomes the biggest swimming fan for the Olympics and then just kind of fads to the background.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah.

Isaac Henning

And I think there's something to be said for like, anyone should be able to come and enjoy a sport and have opinions about it and feel like they are able to engage, but at the same time, recognizing that news headlines are written to be inflammatory. They don't always tell the whole story, and they don't always do every side the justice that it deserves. And so recognizing that, yeah, you should probably read more than one article. Yeah. You should probably take a deep breath and just say, okay, what am I actually feeling about this? Is this feeling like I am engaged with this, or am I feeling upset because this article that was written to sort of provoke this very visceral reaction has done exactly that? And so, I think I would just say it's okay to feel certain things, but it's also okay to gather more information and have your opinion change over time. And coming to things with an open mind is far more important than, like, knowing something right away.

Katie Stevenson

Right. Yeah. I feel like that we've been talking about that a lot, about how important it is before you say something to maybe like, sit down and take a deep breath.

Mohammad Ali

Sorry. So for my understanding, you sort of took this transition. You said that you wanted to take this transition slowly, and you talked about how you haven't taken the male hormones, and you decided to stay on the woman's swimming team this year. So for next year, I just wanted to ask you in your senior year, I believe next year, when you compete in the male category, I'm assuming, is that something that you're anxious about or excited about moving forward? What are your thoughts about that next year?

Isaac Henning

Yes. It's not something I discussed publicly yet, but I am going to be competing on the men's team next year, which I'm incredibly excited about. Yeah. So far, it's just been kind of fun to be able to race people that are faster than me in practice, and so I feel like that makes me a better swimmer, and that's great. I'm excited. I have no expectations. It's kind of this very liberating feeling of, like, I was supposed to graduate this spring anyway, originally, and so I really just am considering next year a little bit like a victory lap of, like, let's just go around and see what happens and enjoy ourselves, you know.

Katie Stevenson

That's awesome. Do you guys have a combined program, like, coaches-wise?

Isaac Henning

Yeah.

Katie Stevenson

Oh, cool. We have that here at William & Mary. I kind of love it. It's nice to be able to race Eugenio in practice.

Isaac Henning

What do you guys swim?

Katie Stevenson

I swim 50, 100, 200 free.

Eugenio Masari

I swim 100, 200 freestyle. Supposedly also swim the five free, but it's been a little rough lately. I don't know. Aerobic capacity is not there, and I'm getting too old for that. Recovery-wise, it's just not as quickly as 17 year old.

Katie Stevenson

Eugenio has been tiptoeing his way out of the factory.

Isaac Henning

I respect that. Joins the group the best.

Katie Stevenson

I'm so glad that your team is like, you guys are so close. That's, like, the key to a successful team, in my opinion.

Isaac Henning

Totally. Happy swimmer is a fast swimmer.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. I think this is one final question. I think we could wrap this up because the whole sort of point of looking at this is, like, in our classes. How does this relate to diversity, inclusion in the workplace? I think. Katie, your last question. So just to end the podcast, I think it's a good point is what are you interested in pursuing after graduation, and what do you think? What life experiences and lessons have you learned, and during the experience, will you take with you into the real world?

Isaac Henning

Yes. I think I'm not exactly sure what I'll be up to directly out of college, but I would love to be a teacher. I want to teach high school science, probably. And I think for me, just recognizing that students come from so many different places, they have so many different experiences, and that changes the way that they perceive things. And so doing a little bit of work on the front end to anticipate that. Right. Kind of like the example you guys gave of the food options. Right?

Katie Stevenson

Right.

Isaac Henning

Making sure that people are feeling catered to. People are feeling like they are being heard, that their concerns are listened to. I think I would love to create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable showing up as 100% themselves.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah. That's so awesome. I would definitely take your class.

Isaac Henning

Thank you.

Katie Stevenson

All right, well, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast today. This was such a cool experience.

Isaac Henning

Thank you for having me. Great to meet you all.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, nice to meet you too. Good luck with finals, by the way.

Isaac Henning

Yeah, thank you. You guys as well.

Katie Stevenson

We're almost done.

Mohammad Ali

Welcome back. Wow, that was a great interview. And Isaac brought in a really great insight into trans athletes and their perception on this whole situation.

Katie Stevenson

I totally agree. That was such a cool experience. I'm so glad that he was able to take out the time of his finals. I've never learned more from a zoom call before.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. So as we conclude, we believe it's important to wrap up the podcast with tying our focus on the experience of transgender athletes and its relevance in bringing about diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Eugenio Masari

So let's talk about a couple of questions that we have been exploring. Why do people feel excluded in the workplace? How can experiences of exclusion influence employee attitudes, behavior, and performance? And why are there conflicts between groups in the workplace?

Mohammad Ali

Yeah, so these are questions that we've actually been exploring throughout the course, and it's clear that these feelings of exclusion are high indicators that companies will not be successful. And so, as we've heard from Isaac, he had one of his best seasons, and he attributed part of that to his close and tight-knit team and support network. And as he decided to come out.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, it was so cute when he said his coach even cried. That just shows how supportive and respectful and kind his environment must be. And I think a lot of times, companies in society as a whole misinterpret the term integration as inclusion when in reality, they're quite different. I learned this in my education class, but integration in the business world is hiring or competing with someone who is different than the majority. And while, yes, they are inside the same circle, it's as if there's this bubble preventing them from feeling part of the community. So if you're picturing it on as a picture, it's like a big circle. And within the big circle, there's a minority circle that's smaller. So while it may look like an inclusive environment, it's really not. And in order to feel the senses of the conclusion and get that internal bubble that's holding this, like, minority group captive is tricky sometimes.

Eugenio Masari

Right. And I think the conflicts arise on a daily basis in the workplace. Because of this butting of heads, colleagues have differences in opinion between the management and his employees. There are divergences. There are a variety of reasons why situation like these arise amongst groups inside of an organization. Ultimately, diversity is the main reason for conflicts in the workplace. People tend to not enjoy being with others that do not align with them.

Mohammad Ali

Yes. And this is actually a major issue. And we've seen some research done at the Pew Research Center that they calculated that in 2021, 57% of people said that part of the reason they left their field of employment was because they felt disrespected or excluded. Even more interesting is that 35% of those people said that that was the main reason or the major reason that they left. And actually, according to Research Society for Human Resource Management, it's reported that it costs, on average, six to nine months of the employee salary to replace them. And so what this really means is that looking at this subject, even from just a strictly business standpoint, it's still not in the best interest of the companies to not accommodate the needs of people working under them and having an environment that is not inclusive because it's going to result in losses for the company.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah, so I like what you said about the business standpoint, and I think in order to achieve this, you need to kind of work on those softer skills, like, quote, which is more like feelings of empathy and kindness towards your employees. And I think it's important that these feelings are being taken into account of everyone that's working at an organization or business. And while, yes, regulations and rules that may mandate more diversity in the workplace may seem like a positive and end all be all, but in reality, it comes down to the internal feelings of someone. And people need to feel welcomed and have self-confidence, which is one of the words that Isaac said that everyone should have, are a critical piece to this puzzle.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. So Isaac mentioned how in the future, he wants to be a teacher, and his goal for his students is for them to feel like they can be whoever they want, which ties into how we want people to feel in the workplace, which is DEI work.

Eugenio Masari

Yeah. And as Isaac said himself, it is so important from a young age to practice this inclusion and equity, even just in simple life and work and in the workplace as well.

Katie Stevenson

So, audience, we hope that you have come to a more holistic perspective on a situation like transgender athletes in sports. And I've come to really value inclusion and what that can do for an individual and for a team in a sport or workplace.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. And although we haven't solved the problem of exclusion, like Katie said, we hope that, like you said mentioned, the audience understands the value and the need of inclusion and being accepted in the workplace and what that means for each individual person.

Katie Stevenson

Yeah. This is a great final project.

Mohammad Ali

Yeah. Who knew a final project would be so valuable?

Katie Stevenson

I agree. Okay, folks, that wraps up today's episode of Over Sit. We hope that you sat down and over-listened so that your understanding is better. Have a great day.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• What factors contribute to the gender pay gap
• The flaws contained within the Equal Pay Act of 1963
• The significance of the Ledbetter vs Goodyear decision
• How the modern pay gap discrepancy is measured
• Why maternity is a major factor in the gender pay gap
• How prior compensation history contributes to systemic discrimination for women
• Phil Wagner speaks on how Social Comparison Theory plays a role in workplace gender discrimination
• Dr. Nicole Pyer's experience on being a woman in the professional world
• Best practices for countering pay discrepancies in the workplace
• They many benefits of ending gender pay inequality

Transcript

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun.

Phil Wagner

Dear friends of our podcast, thanks for tuning in over your summer. As you can likely surmise, things are a little bit slow here. We've taken a little bit of a summer sabbatical to give us space to think about, plan for, and record season two, which, by the way, is going to be dynamic. Stay tuned. It drops this fall. But in the meantime, we didn't want to keep you wanting, so we've decided to release three special bonus episodes. And lucky for you, I'm not the host. That's right. We put our students in front of the mic. During this mini-summer student takeover, you'll get to hear from three student groups from our Spring 2022 Diversity in the Workplace course here in the Mason School of Business. These episodes were specially selected as they build on some important themes and give our students a chance to showcase their work. We've selected three to keep you engaged as we wait for season two to drop. In this first episode, Will Casale, Tasia Ricks, and Katherine Davis will be sharing just a bit more on the gender pay gap. They've got some interesting insights, though it does bear noting that the perspectives shared in this podcast episode are the students and the students alone. They have guided the conversation, and I'm glad you can learn from their insights. So, without further ado, here's episode one of our summer student takeover with Will, Tasia, and Katherine.

Tasia Ricks

Hello, friends. Welcome back to Diversity Goes to Work. In this episode, we have myself, Tasia Ricks, a junior at the college, majoring in government with the minor in sociology.

Will Casale

We also have myself, William Casale, a senior here at the College of William & Mary. I'm an economics major and a business management minor.

Katherine Davis

And then myself, Katherine Davis. I am a senior marketing major with a concentration in management and organizational leadership.

Will Casale

And today, we are going to be talking about the gender pay gap. Guys, what are your thoughts on the gender pay gap right off the bat? What were some of the reasons you guys wanted to talk about this topic?

Tasia Ricks

Maybe because it's not real.

Will Casale

Tasia, come on. That joke was not funny, Tasia.

Tasia Ricks

Well, before we got into the heavy material, I had to do a little test practice run, you know. That's why we're here, right?

Will Casale

That was the test you guys all failed. That's the reason we're talking about this.

Katherine Davis

All right, guys, it's because of skeptics like Tasia that we need to have this conversation about the gender pay gap. So I'm going to start off with a timeline of historical events that have contributed to the gender pay gap. And then Will is going to talk to you guys a little bit more about some current issues that contribute to this gender pay gap. And then, we'll hear some thoughts from Professor Phil Wagner of the College of William & Mary. And then, we'll finish it off with Tasia, who is going to share some thoughts from a pharmacist Nicole Pryor and her experiences with the gender pay gap in her workplace. And then she's going to give you guys some recommendations on things that you can do to support the fight in getting equal pay for women in the workforce.

Tasia Ricks

By the end of this podcast, you should have every moral obligation to get up and join us in this fight to equal pay.

Will Casale

Yes. And now we're going to move it on over to Katherine for her section talking about history of the gender pay gap. Katherine, what do you have to say?

Katherine Davis

So historically, the gender wage gap refers to disparity in incomes between men and women from doing the same work, although, during our research, we discover that there are many more factors than just sex that contribute to the wage gap. Some other contributing factors include race, class status, and education. There are roots of the gender pay gap that goes all the way back to the beginnings of industrial capitalism, where we saw men working outside of the home for wages, while women whose unpaid work in the home that was equally as valuable to societies was always undervalued because there was no wage associated with their role as the family caretaker. To fast forward about two decades to the 1940s, Winifred Stanley, a Republican member of Congress from New York, introduced a bill titled Prohibiting Discrimination and Pay on Account of Sex that would have amended the list of unfair labor practices in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 to include discriminating against any employee in the rate of compensation paid on account of sex. However, this bill did not make it through Congress, and we did not see much progress for equal pay for women until the sixties when the JFK administration took office. Specifically, in 1963 on June 10, when the Equal Pay Act was put into effect. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 mandates that employers cannot award unequal pay or benefits to women and men who are working jobs that require equal skill, effort, and responsibility and which are performed under similar working conditions. While this was a pivotal event for women's rights, there were still flaws in the bill that resulted in the continuation of the gender wage gap. However, in 1964 there was an addition to this bill called the Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, not just those in 1963 of sex. And then we'll fast forward to the 70s when the concept of comparable worth and pay equity entered the national conversation. In the 1970s, we saw many women and people of color still segregated into small number of jobs, such as clerical, service workers, nurses, and teachers. An advocacy group, the National Committee on Pay Equity, explained that these jobs have historically been undervalued and continue to be underpaid to a large extent because of the gender and race of people who hold them. We then hear from Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the Equal Opportunity Commission during the Carter administration, who singled out comparable worth as the issue of the 1980s. However, the Reagan administration that came next firmly opposed this idea, resulting in little to no change in the laws surrounding the gender pay gap in the 90s. Fast forward nearly a decade to 2007. U.S. Supreme Court Ledbetter versus Goodyear, which was a case where Ledbetter sued her employer under the Civil Rights Act, alleging that it had underpaid her for 19 years, and a jury awarded her more than $3.5 million dollars. However, Goodyear appealed, arguing that she failed to file the suit within 180 days while the discrimination first occurred. An appeals court reversed the original decision, and the Supreme Court also ruled against Ledbetter in a five to four vote. However, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and dissenting suggested that this was now a matter for Congress to take up. Which they did, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed in 2009. It expanded the period for filing a discrimination claim, making it easier for other women to sue employers that they believe had discriminated against them. It was also the first piece of legislation signed into law by then-President Barack Obama just nine days after his inauguration. I'm now going to pass it over to Will to talk to you guys a little bit more about some current issues surrounding the gender pay gap.

Will Casale

Thank you, Katherine. Now that we have established the historical foundation of how women's pay in the workplace has evolved, let us move on to the modern-day United States. Woman's participation rate in the labor force has increased dramatically, and policy actively opposing discrimination in the workplace has never been stronger. However, the wage gap has not progressed at all, as there is still a clear and persistent discrepancy in compensation. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, women, on average, earn $0.82 for every dollar that the average man earns. This $0.82 on the dollar stat is one of the more famous accompli reference statistics in our modern society. Statistics, though, can often be vague in their implications, and sometimes they can be flat-out misleading. When we're analyzing stats involving groups of hundreds of millions of people, such as this measure, the full story can be left untold. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to this measure of pay difference in the workplace, and breaking them down can help us better understand what fully accounts for this discrepancy. First of all, we must break down how exactly this $0.82 on the dollar statistic was calculated in the first place. This measurement of the gender wage gap is determined by finding the ratio of women's to men's earnings for full-time, year-round workers across the entire United States and taking the difference between those earnings. Contrary to popular belief, this metric does not reflect a direct comparison between men and women performing identical occupations in the workplace. There seems to be some intentionality behind this, though, as not doing direct comparisons allow the stat to encompass a variety of other factors contributing to the wage gap. Race is another very heavy influencer of how much women will make in the workplace. As the wage gap is much larger for most women of color, who earn $0.62 for every dollar a white male earns. Hispanic women earn even less at a mere $0.54 on the dollar, meaning men earn nearly twice as much as the average Hispanic woman. On the other hand, Asian women fare much better, earning about $0.90 on the dollar. White females earn about $0.79 per white male dollar. The role that race plays in the wage gap is often obscured by gender differences, but it is clearly a comparable factor in terms of its impact. Differing industries is also a contributing factor to the pay gap. Gender norms and expectations can tend to funnel men and women into different kinds of careers. Some of these female majority industries, such as home health aides, childcare workers, and other things of that sort. On average pay much less than male-dominated industries. Differing hours worked and years of experience are major factors in why women earn less on average, and they can be predominantly attributed to one thing, maternity. Women are disproportionately driven out of the workforce to accommodate caregiving, and it gives them a severe disadvantage in both hours worked a week and total experience over the course of their careers. Access to paid family and medical leave makes women much more likely to return to work and more likely to return sooner at that. However, as of March 2019, only 19% of civilian workers had access to paid family leave through their employers. This means lower hourly wages and fewer benefits compared with full-time workers. Make no mistake about it, though. The fact that maternity has a good chunk of the impact does not change the fact that this is still a clear gender-related issue. Women are forced to bear the brunt of the responsibility when it comes to pregnancy and early caregiving for a child. Company policy is simply lagging behind in terms of supporting women who become pregnant and trying to prevent their careers from being completely derailed. There is no overarching federal legislation requiring employers to offer paid maternity leave. The average amount of paid maternity leave given by companies is eight weeks, but this isn't mandated by the law. Federal law only requires twelve weeks of unpaid leave. 40% of employers offered paid maternity leave in some form. Under these conditions, it is nearly impossible for a woman's career trajectory to stay on track once they become mothers. Last but certainly not least is plain flat-out discrimination. Gender-based discrimination pay has not been legal in the United States since the early 60s, as Katherine previously referenced, but it still remains a widespread practice today. This extends beyond explicit decisions to pay women less than men. As the discrimination is not just a service level issue, but it is a systemic issue. Employers often discriminate in pay when they rely on prior salary history in hiring and compensation decisions. This can enable pay decisions that could have been influenced by discrimination to follow women from job to job. Given the variety of different factors at play with gender discrimination in the workplace, what sort of psychological theories can we use to account for these dynamics? To discuss these various phenomena, we've decided to bring on Dr. Phil Wagner, a professor at the College of William & Mary who specializes in organizational communication, social support, and diversity and inclusion.

Will Casale

Well, we are here with Dr. Phil Wagner. How are you doing today, sir?

Phil Wagner

You know, I am busy but good. And I know that's probably how you feel, too. It's like a crazy time in the semester but excited to be chatting with you, my friend.

Will Casale

Yes, thank you very much for making the time. It's that time of the year. It's very busy for everybody. So I wanted to ask you just a couple of questions to see what your thoughts are on this gender pay gap dynamic in the workplace. I first wanted to ask you about social comparison theory. I wanted to know if you think that plays a role in gender discrimination in the workplace.

Phil Wagner

So there are, for lack of a better term, a bucket of theories that we can use to address issues of workplace inequity workplace performance that relates to DEI issues and exclusion, group conflicts. I would first frame and say I'll pull from my lecture notes, Will, so just a heads up. It'll be a little bit repetitive here, and just anybody listening, those notes come from Michelle Mebarak's work. Great, prolific scholar that has sort of synthesized those theories. But for me, the idea of social comparison playing out in gender discrimination in the workplace. Yeah, I think so because this relates to one of the three questions that we ask about DEI work, which is, first and foremost, why do employees feel excluded in the first place? And this is sort of riffing off of that theme. So for me, to contextualize the theory coming from Leon Festinger from the 50s, theory says we have this innate sort of, like, internal driving force that compels us to just evaluate ourselves in relation to others. And that's natural. We're constantly self-reflective beings thinking about ways to benchmark our success. And we do that quite simply by using sort of observation and how we relate to others as a kind of data-driven change management strategy. We do this in all areas of life, right? I played piano growing up, and I had this arch enemy, Benji. We were kind of at the same level, but to be honest, he was just a little better than me, no matter how much I practiced. So I compared myself to Benji. That's how I knew I met the mark. We would sort of grow together. Even if he was a little bit ahead of me, I knew and judged my own status by my relation to him. So I think in the world of work, there are a lot of different ways that something like that might play out. Probably one that sticks out to me related to this conversation is an area of access and how that impacts opportunities for that sort of benchmarking we talked about. A caveat this is a little bit of a note on simplicity. I will definitely keep my answers like high-level public, not super deep, so don't judge me for it. But I think the first thing I think of is that the context of the world of work is not necessarily like, well established for successful comparison for women to benchmark their performance. Quite simply, because we know that data has told us consistently time and time again, women have consistent barriers towards upward mobility and particularly access to the C suite. So if you're a female with C suite expectations and aspirations, how do you benchmark that? Who do you compare that against? It's likely going to be a male colleague. So how do you do that? We're not arguing that women and men can't learn from each other, but I do think that there are different obstacles faced which complicates how that theory might be applied. We talked about this in class, but you can't really be what you can't see, and I would say you can't really benchmark yourself against others that aren't there. So this is about acknowledging that the world of work is kind of an unbalanced power system. And researchers argue back and forth about the gendered or sex function of social comparison that didn't originally factor into Festinger's work. Other research that followed off of that kind of left it off too. We do now collectively sort of understand that the comparison process underneath the lens of social comparison looks differently for men and women. Early research, I think from the early 2000s, like Shelley Taylor's work, looks at the desire to affiliate with others. And that research notes that that's a more marked desire among females than males. So it's hard not to see how this might factor into representation issues. I also think it maps out the other theories, some that we talked about in class, some that go beyond some communication theory, things like uncertainty reduction theory. We always try to reduce the amount of uncertainty or anxiety we face in any situation. And people want to compare themselves to each other in part to sort of reduce that anxiety that might come along with imposter syndrome or assessing whether they're where they should be or not. Other theories like social identity theory or self-categorization theory, I think, also give us a good foundation here too. But I do think that this theory might be helpful. But we have to contextualize it with the realities of the world of work. And I think access complicates that reality as it relates to application of this theory. Does that answer your question? Will, I told you. I'm super verbose.

Will Casale

That was as complete of an answer as I could have hoped for.

Phil Wagner

All right, good.

Will Casale

One of the other things you were discussing all these objective barriers that are clearly there in the workplace for women who are trying to achieve certain opportunities. And those are objective regardless of how they perform. But one of the psychological consequences associated with this could be a lack of motivation, knowing those obstacles are there in the first place. So do you get the sense that identity-based motivation theory plays a role in the workplace as well?

Phil Wagner

Okay, so this is a good question, and I see where you're going here. So I'm kind of one trick pony, and I always go back in my own DE&I work. I did another podcast today where we talked about these three things. So apologies for the repeat, but my own work in the space goes back to three central questions. Why do employees feel excluded? What are the consequences of that exclusion on their motivations and behaviors, and performance? And then three, why do groups experience conflict in the workplace? And so, question number two, this clearly relates to that. I think there are a few different theories that might relate here. The socio-meter model of self-esteem or interaction model of cultural diversity, or a handful of identity theories, might also explain this too. I've studied identity theory a lot. I use identity theories in my work. I have to tell you, identity-based motivation is not my particular forte, but it is pretty simple. So it's easy to understand. I haven't utilized it in research, but it's very easy to apply. IBM really just looks at human motivation and the ways in which that motivation kind of drives us towards specific or outline goals. So the premise of the theory is that people just prefer to act in ways that align or feel congruent with their identity or identities. And I say identities because we, of course, have to take an intersectional perspective. I know we're talking about men and women, but I want to be mindful here that no one has just one identity. They overlap and compete and converge, complicate each other. But for sake of conversation, let's boil it down to just like a binary gender identity. What we're talking about with wage gap is really just about exclusion writ large. So, sure, it has specific outcomes, but it's primarily about exclusion. So then we can back up and recognize two things that that theory probably would tell us pretty specifically. First, workplace exclusion is going to shape which identities are more present or more salient in specific situations. So maybe your employee identity, your identity as a woman, your identity as a Latino might factor in differently given the context of workplace exclusion. So in the context of wage discrimination, it's hard not to see how gender identity factors in. Data tells us that race does, too, because black women make even fewer cents on the dollar than white women do, so those identities matter, but an intersectional lens is likely to be the most impactful. And then, I think the theory would also remind us that workplace exclusion shapes specific norms and values, and behaviors. And so the theory tells us that exclusion in the workplace can affect employees motivation to undertake or complete tasks, right? I mean, if you're feeling those, it is going to impact what you want to do and why. And I think our readings that we've talked about in our own course will sort of set this up, Will. Mebarak, in her work, gives an example, I believe, of how gender might impact wage-related issues. So she talks about if a woman sees an ad vacancy for a really challenging but advantageous opportunity, her desire or motivation to even move forward and think about competing for that position would likely be impacted by multiple different intersecting elements of her identity or multiple intersecting identities. So gender, of course, but also work identity for that specific woman, those identities might intersect to send messages about the likelihood of her success. We have to sort of look at organizational culture. Do her identity experiences support this idea in her head that she would fit in, that she would be valued, would be taken seriously? Has she overheard conversations from male executives commenting that female leaders maybe aren't as successful? Or has she heard other women share experiences where they have had a really tough time changing organizational culture or achieving the outcomes they need to be successful in that position? We have to look at organizational culture writ large to ask questions about motivation. So I think these really are issues of culture. But I think the theory is probably most helpful in helping us understand the relationship between exclusionary work environments and the ways in which they impact employee motivations and behaviors. So I think even the small, like slight changes in organizational culture, those can drastically shift motivations and experiences. And we have to think about how that might play out for other people too. LGBTQ folks, folks with a disability, BIPOC, folks who don't see themselves represented. I think this goes beyond just the gender and wage conversation alone, but I think it's a theory that could help us understand more about that topic writ large.

Will Casale

So clearly, the gender wage gap is still a very big and very real problem in the United States today. Now that we've discussed all of the problems associated with unequal compensation in the workplace. We'd like to give our best efforts to find some solutions that you, our listener, can get involved in. And for that, I'm going to move it on to our good friend Tasia.

Tasia Ricks

Before I get into ways to combat the gender pay gap, I would love for you all to hear from an individual who has experienced this. All right, everyone. Today I would like to introduce Dr. Nicole Pyer, whom is a pharmacist, has been practicing pharmacy for the past twelve years, as well as navigating through business roles and other aspects. And she has information to share about gender inequalities. Okay, so I just have a few questions for you today. I'm going to start by asking what is your experience in this space and how did you approach the issue?

Nicole Pyer

Okay, first, I would like to speak about being a woman in the professional world is something that can be intimidating. But in addition to that, a lot of times, what happens is that women in these spaces typically don't talk about pay rates or salary positions. Most of the times, when you accept the offer from these from large companies, you negotiate your salary. And especially when you negotiate, you definitely believe or have a perception that you're advocating for yourself. And so, a lot of times, what happens is people end up lowballing themselves in positions like this, surprisingly. I think that sometimes a lot of women in power or in higher ranking or powerful positions tend to go or negotiate lower pay grade salaries. Being in the professional world and being a pharmacist, particularly. One of the sayings back in school, like six years, six figures, so you always think like, oh, when you get out, you graduate, you'll be able to make six figures, and everything will be great. Well, I did have the advantage of being able to have a six-figure salary, but it wasn't until that I got into the professional world, from intern, from intern to grad intern, to actually practicing, that I realized that I wasn't being paid the same amount as my counterparts. And it just so happened to be a conversation about another male pharmacist who was actually leaving the company. And it was a discussion about why would he be leaving the company when he made x amount of dollars per hour. And it raised an eyebrow for everybody who overheard that conversation. Because, as I stated, when you're negotiating a salary in certain positions, companies tend to go on the lower pay grade. If you have experience and you've been in avenues where you can negotiate your pay grade, it's not as intimidating. But in this situation, I was freshly graduated, and I was willing to take anything at that time. So when I realized that my male counterpart, who had maybe about ten years more experience than me, was making almost 20 to 30, almost 40,000 more than I was, it was kind of like, wow, what happened? What happened to me that why was I given a lower pay grade? But, you know, what happens a lot of times is that it's swept under the rug. Employers encourage their employees to not discuss their pay rate with their colleagues, and I think a lot of times, it's because of the inequality that you see between genders, race, and disabilities. I think those are the reasons a lot of employers tend to encourage their employees to not speak about their pay rate.

Tasia Ricks

Wow, that's a lot of information. Yes, that's a lot of information to take in. Thank you. Sorry that you experienced that. Being that you have experienced this, do you have any advice for anyone who is currently facing these issues?

Nicole Pyer

Absolutely. Once I was faced with this, I definitely encouraged my counterparts to talk about their pay with their colleagues. If we're doing the same job, we should be having the same equal pay. And I understand that experience may be a factor or certain credentialing, but if our base pay is all the same across the board, then when we're going up for our annual review, it shouldn't be that my male counterpart is almost $15 over what I'm being paid. If we have the same amount of time and experience, and you see that to this day, and it's an unfortunate situation, but I think in spaces like this, I heavily encourage it. Even if you don't want to specify exactly how much you make on an annual basis, I think that if you could just get a figure and kind of say, okay, where you are in this median, then I think that will kind of encourage people to have conversations. And if they do realize that they are being lowballed, I think that you should go to your employer, and you should address it because they're breaking the law. There is an equal pay act that was implemented into law to discourage and stop employers from paying certain employees a lesser income due to their race or their gender. So I definitely encourage women, men, black, white, Asian of any gender or race to talk to their colleagues. Like I said, if you want to be discreet, talk about a figure, even if you talk about certain incentives, like vacation time, things of that sort, and just kind of talk about it in order to see where they stand. And if you realize that you're being lowballed, I definitely think you should take that information, go to the employer, and they should be able to explain you why you're making less than your counterpart, especially if you have the same experience and the same education.

Tasia Ricks

Okay, thank you for that answer. I just have one last question for you. Rather, do you know of any misconceptions about the gender pay gap? And if you do, what factors do you think contribute to these misconceptions?

Nicole Pyer

As I stated previously, most employers when you receive an offer letter, or you receive an offer. A lot of times, they say, hey, don't discuss this information with your colleagues about your pay rate. And a lot of times, they try to insinuate that maybe you're being paid higher than your colleagues. But what if it's like reverse psychology, and it's the complete opposite? What if it's that your employer is actually lowballing you compared to your other counterparts who have the same education, the same experience, and the same time vested into your career? So as I stated previously, I think it's really important to talk about this. Don't be afraid to talk about it with your counterparts. And I think what encourages that is that people are afraid to. Because I know at one time it was considered against company policy to discuss your pay rate with one another, but now you don't hear about that as much. But growing up and being an intern and applying for different positions, every time that I received a new job, it was documented in like the new colleague orientation to not discuss your pay rate with your colleagues. And if they found out, you would be either terminated, or it was some type of it would be something against you for the company. I'm trying to think of the word. It's like almost like a demerit. If they found out about it like I said, you can either be terminated or you could be demoted, which I think is totally absurd. And it's like, why would you want to discourage your colleagues from talking about something that this gender inequality affects people across the board, it affects level of education, it affects social economics. If women are able to be paid more, that means that it's more income coming into the household for families, and it also allows for women to be more confident to apply for positions of power because they know that they will be getting paid. And as well as for other companies to encourage people to apply for different positions to receive higher education because they know that they will be compensated for the time and the investment that they put in themselves to be an asset to the company. I hope that answered all of your questions.

Tasia Ricks

Yes, that was a lot, but a lot of great information. I really do appreciate you for doing this interview today. Do you have any other remarks or anything else to add?

Nicole Pyer

No, I just encourage people to continue to advocate for yourself and your colleagues. If you feel like you are being wronged by a company that you're investing your time and effort into. I think you should take it to H.R., get the facts, and hopefully, we can all stand together to close this gender inequality pay because all those laws are put in place. It is very much still a real thing that is happening, and I'm glad that we're having a conversation around this, but it takes courage for people to stand up for themselves or maybe even their colleagues.

Tasia Ricks

Ending the gender pay gap is about making sure women and men are paid fairly and equitably for the work they do. According to the globalcitizen.org, improving gender equality and pay will, in turn, help with other things, like improving women's health, ending domestic violence, and even enabling female entrepreneurship. I will discuss ways to combat the gender pay gap and advocate for equal pay through four different lenses at the federal level, corporation level, individual level, and as a coworker or colleague. At the federal level, laws and bills should be put into place. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which promotes pay equity, has passed in the House but continues to fail in the Senate. One way the gender pay gap can be narrowed is by members of Congress and other politically powerful people vocally supporting legislative measures to strengthen equal pay. This can include voting yes for bills like the Paycheck Fairness Act, which, if passed, will launch pay transparency initiatives. These transparency initiatives will hold employers accountable for pay practices by mandating that they disclose wages and overall compensation. These actions will also work to reduce pay secrecy. Additionally, an increased wage floor or minimum wage is another potential way to compact the gender pay gap. Minimum wages vary from state to state, and although they may have been increased over time, it is quite obviously still not enough to close the gap. Especially when women are making less than their male counterparts worldwide. Universal social protection and economic security policies to keep women in the workforce is another way to narrow the gap. For women being in a job and being able to come back to the job in cases of maternal leave or other situations is important. Women's work needs to be valued through legal and collective regulation. Creating these laws and policies would not be enough, though let's not forget these laws must be enforced. For ensured enforcement of federal laws, compliance reviews should be conducted regularly. As a corporation, gender pay audits and action plans can be used to tackle the gender pay gap. Once employers acknowledge the data that proves this gap, the action plans can be implemented to combat this issue. Another tactic could be improving employment opportunities for women by developing promotion opportunities. The first step, though, would be to equalize performance reviews. It is pertinent that men and women are evaluated by the same standards. To ensure there are women equally available for promotion, companies should ensure diversity in every job level. Jobs that are not diverse exasperate the issue of equal pay as occupational segregation, and the opportunity gap are drivers of the gender pay gap. With that said, recruiting and promoting women to leadership roles will place women in spaces to influence company culture and decision-making. Lastly, in the corporate world, many companies are outright pledging commitment to pay equity. A company can be made more in charge of its employees if they take this pledge. Now at the individual level, I strongly believe that you are your best advocate, so advocate for yourself first of all. Don't be afraid to ask for a raise or negotiate your salary after doing research. Make sure to research the salary for your job position in your geographical area, and do not forget to talk about your strengths in regards to your role in the company. Another way to advocate for yourself is to join advocate groups such as the Equal Pay Advocates. This group challenges the legal, policy, and cultural barriers that allow the gender wage gap to persist. Their advocacy campaign, Equal Pay Today, suggests action through calling, tweeting, and even write into legislatives for policy reform. This brings me to another point. Advocate for yourself through social media. Don't just use those for cute pictures. Use your social media platform to discuss equal pay or even tell your story if you have ever experienced this. Share campaigns on your feed and follow activists. Basically, use your platform to educate, learn, and advocate. If you are a person experiencing the gender pay gap at work, talk to others that may be experiencing this too. This will create a sense of community, security, and confidence for everyone. Even if others are not experiencing this grievance, discussing it with them could possibly put pressure on them to do something about it. After all, pay and equity affects the entire workplace. Finally, if you want to see change, you have to get out and vote. Every vote counts. Do not ever be discouraged by the thought that your one vote does not matter. As a coworker or colleague, if you're in a position that can promote more equitable pay, advocate for those who are underpaid. As a team lead supervisor or manager. If you have the power to ensure internal equity, conduct regular compensation reviews. If this is not within your power, make a case to eliminate gaps in your team when in meetings with H.R. or your boss. Teamwork and productivity lies within how one feels about their position in the company, among other factors. Those who are not satisfied in their position will not always show up as their best self at work. It is extremely important to take the initiative when you are in a higher position than those who are suffering. Because if you stand by and you watch, you are indirectly contributing to the persistence of the gap. All right, guys, do you have any other recommendations for combating the gender pay gap?

Will Casale

Yeah, well, I think that's all good, Tasia. I think you touched on a lot of good topics. One of the things I was thinking that doesn't really get at the root of the systemic issues, but sort of the best way that you personally can give yourself the best opportunity if you're affected by the gender pay gap. There's a couple of ways. One, I think, is valuing education. The statistics show that fully educated women don't suffer anywhere near as much as those who don't have a full college diploma or high school diploma or anything of that sort. I think another good way to sort of fight for change is to get involved in jobs that allow you to unionize, just because the more numbers you can kind of get behind a movement, the more likely the workplace is to change their policies. So those are sort of a couple of suggestions I might have, but yes, and that's our podcast. Katherine, you want to close it off for us?

Katherine Davis

Yeah. We really hope that this podcast was as informative for you as it was for us. And just to end us off, Tasia's going to give us a little bit of a call to action to get you guys excited about combating this issue in your everyday lives.

Tasia Ricks

Thanks again for listening. I just want to say that the time is now to have these uncomfortable conversations. The time is now to advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves. We have stood by long enough, but now it's time to get up and advocate. Thank you.

Will Casale

Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• How does dignity factor into age in the world of work
• How autonomy relates to dignity
• What role soft skills play in an age friendly environment
• What are the benefits of an age diversified workforce
• How the pandemic has affected the older workforce
• How best to navigate communication differences between and among generations
• How does the older workforce keep relevant in a world where wisdom has been replaced by data

Transcript

Kathy Black

The nowhere for retirement fills work, and many people will find themselves having to financially support themselves. We can talk about some of the macro policies surrounding that, but the reality is people will be in the workforce longer.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome listeners to yet another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. This week, we're continuing our conversation on aging and age diversity in the world of work. And we are joined by a true expert. Dr. Kathy Black is a professor of aging studies at the University of South Florida. She's a Next Avenue Top 50 National Influencer in Aging, a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar, a fellow in the Gerontological Society of America, and an advisor for age-friendly Sarasota. Dr. Black has more than 40 years of experience working in the field of aging. She's been a practitioner, an educator, a researcher, and she's worked directly with older adults and their families as a geriatric case manager, a medical social worker, and a geriatric nurse in long-term care, hospital, nursing home, and community-based settings. She's got experience at every single level. She has conducted over 200 presentations in the field of health and aging at local, state, national, and global venues. She's been the principal investigator on more than a dozen grants in aging. She's authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications in top-tier journals. She's widely cited. She's a phenomenal expert. She is a dear friend and someone I am delighted to be able to host on today's episode. Kathy, thanks so much for joining us today on another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. I'm delighted to speak with you. I'm very familiar with your work. I'm very familiar with you, given that we were once colleagues, and I could not be more excited to hear your insight on age diversity in the world of work. Kathy, you spent your very impressive professional career really focusing on age. What drives your personal interest in creating age-friendly spaces?

Kathy Black

Well, Phil, it's an honor to be with you, and you are just an esteemed colleague. So truly, this is my privilege to be with you today. As you know, Phil, I have a passion for aging, as other people have a passion for what they do. And I just, from a very early age on, enjoyed older adults, love the stories, love the people, and literally have made a career caring about how people age. And of course, as society has continued age, it's more about how do we live fully across our life course, at every life stage and ability.

Phil Wagner

And that's what sticks out to me about your work, Kathy is that a lot of your work focuses on dignity, dignity among aging adults. From your perspective, how does dignity factor into age in the world of work specifically?

Kathy Black

Well, Phil, I'm glad you asked about that. And we did a study about a decade ago, and we asked the community, older adults in the community what dignity and independence meant to them. And Phil, as you know, I can take your blood pressure, I can get a blood value. But there is no barometer reading on dignity. It's very subjective. And what we found was that three main concepts and they really do apply to work as well. And that is this concept of autonomy, which is people's dignity is part of feeling that they have self-direction, self-choice. They can rely on themselves self-sufficiency. So that's very important. Again, it's subjective. People have different balance on these aspects. But autonomy was very closely related. There was a very strong relational component with dignity. That is, my dignity is also impacted on how I'm treated. So your recognition of me is part of my dignity. So respectful treatment. And by the way, it's also respectful treatment of others because you can't be in a dignified space if others are being treated without dignity.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Kathy Black

And again, there's a persona aspect here. I don't want to say that it's all embodiment, but for example, you do hear people say that they feel invisible or that they are judged as feeble, perhaps because of some changes. So that's a very important component of this sort of interpersonal relational angle. And then lastly, we also heard from people that it's highly intertwined with their identity. People have a sense of self-pride, acceptance, self-appreciation, self-worth. And that's an inherent worth. After all, we all have inherent dignity from birth, but also an earned worth. And so, again, it's a highly subjective construct but very important to all of us. Very much plays out in the work world.

Phil Wagner

It does, and it plays out in the pragmatic recommendations that you make based off of your work, too. Cathy, some of our listeners may not know that you've really spent a lot of your professional career cultivating age-friendly spaces, and you've been recognized for that work. Can you share with us from your perspective what is an age-friendly organizational space even look like?

Kathy Black

Excellent question. There is a certified age-friendly employer website now, and I'm quite impressed with it. They're professionals who have really pulled together, and people can be identified as age-friendly businesses. And I'll tell you what they're looking for. First of all, you do a self-study, and then you can do more to promote yourself. But they're looking really the entire gamut of the work world, from organization management HR. So, for example, that there's a commitment in workforce policies, organizational culture, employee relations, workforce planning, and composition, retention, candidate recruiting, management style, training and development, the content of the job, the process, work schedules, arrangement, compensation, healthcare benefits matter, a lot and savings and retirement benefits. So that's sort of some of the structural elements I also want to share with you. I was very impressed with this model that just was I think it was one of the last issues of the Gerontologist, which is the leading journal in my field. And they looked at age-friendly workplaces, and they really scoured what is out there in the work world. And so, an age-friendly work organizational culture. And so, by the way, that's a distinction. We could look at this from a societal level. We could look at this from an organizational level, from an industry level. We could look at this from a personal level. But what is an organizational and age-friendly workplace? Well, there's recognition and respect goes right back to those points and dignity that we talked about, that there's fairness and equality. People feel that they're being treated not because of age, which, by the way, is really chronological. And I'm going to come back to that in a moment that there's awareness phrasing. Phil, something we haven't talked about is there's an enormous diversity of age, and it's almost a joke to talk about age as a homogeneous, monolithic group. Phil, there are six generations alive today. Gen X is in their fifty's. The millennials are going to hit 50 in 2030.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for that note, Kathy. As a millennial, I appreciate the reminder.

Kathy Black

But the reality is we are so different. Now there are some normative changes with aging that are real, and there are some life circumstances that can just hit us that impact our ability to perform in a work environment. I mean, Phil, not all of us can stand on our feet all day. We can't do those twelve-hour shifts sometimes. Some of us have eyesight or vision issues affecting our ability to do tedious work with our hands, our eyesight, or even perhaps even driving in at different times of the shift. So, there's a lot of considerations when we listen to people in our community. We heard people talk about caregiving responsibilities. They want to work, but they've got people that are counting on them. Again, people have their own health issues, and so there's a whole bunch of circumstances. I'll just tell you a very famous study that was done in Germany with BMW. They found that there was a lot of errors in the various plants, and so they artificially populated one of their plants with older workers. And what they determined was that by changing the workplace, productivity increased. So, to not automatically assume there's nothing inherently wrong with the older worker, but the workplace can be adapted. So just getting back to that, there is this sense of awareness-raising because Phil look aging, and being older it's social construction. It tends to very negative connotation. It is learned you weren't born associating older with anything negative, but it has been learned. And so, it's going to take some relearning. The truth is we're living longer than ever before. We have much to contribute in social, economic, civic life. And so, we'll have longer working lives as well. And by the way, people need to keep working more, as many people are really unprepared for their extended longevity. And honestly, if you look across many industries, many organizations and industries are really gray, and they are really struggling with how do they encourage more people coming in? So, some of the things that organizations can do, Phil, again, in addition to helping change those attitudes and supporting those relationships. At the level of working with the employee, it's all about growth and development. We need to continue investing in people at all ages. And so, I'm sure you're familiar with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes. So, we want to utilize those and continue to build on those. Lifelong learning is very important. Phil, our entire educational structure, you and I know this well, is quite linear. And it was built for a different time and space where there was demarcated points in life. You went to school. You worked. You're retired. Well, the nowhere for retirement fills work, and many people will find themselves having to financially support themselves. We can talk about some of the macro policies surrounding that, but the reality is people will be in the workforce longer, and many people want to continue contributing. So how do we invest and support their personal development, career development, manage their mobility across stages, and job enrichment? And remember, because health issues do become increasingly more common with age, how do we continue to work with people to work with their changing health? I was at a career Sun Coast meeting with an older 58 support group. They all were looking for work, and it was unbelievable to be there. And it broke my heart. I wanted to leave there, giving everybody a job. And I remember one woman so desperate and saying to me as I was leaving, I really desperately need to work. And I start dialysis next week.

Phil Wagner

Oh, wow.

Kathy Black

The issues are so real. So how do we help people stay healthy as well and keep them at the level that they want to continue to contribute? And when changes do occur, how can the workforce be redesigned? We heard about nursing stations again, nurses. The nurses are aging. The nursing workforce is continuing to get older. And so again, those twelve-hour shifts are hard on the feet, hard on endurance. And so, how do we redesign those workspaces? So, you're not walking as much, for example, recrafting roles, redeploying. Again, retention is going to be increasingly important. Even the front page of today's New York Times Phil was about China increasing their retirement age because their recognition, and this is very true in the United States as well. We need to continue to utilize older adults in labor because of the changing demographics. And the skilled workforce is not going to be there, and so part of that accommodation, Phil, is flexibility. And by the way, that works for all ages, flexible working, work-life balance, reduced workload. And I also want to share with you, Phil. I know that you will greatly appreciate this. Your listeners may not know this, but you are just such a gift in so many ways. But you were also very strong in critical thinking. You were all over that because your sense was people don't just learn things and get a degree, but it's the way they think and the value they add. Well, you should know that nearly every top ten list of future important work skills. And again, this is from the World Economic Forum. The Institute for the Future online learning platforms refer to what is needed today as soft skills, hard to quantify abilities, traits, mindsets, empathy, social, emotional intelligence, judgment, sense-making, communication. And, Phil, guess what? These things come with experience, and that's where we're at today. This is a highly prized and valued attribute that only you get with age. So, in fact, older adults add a lot of value to the workforce. And it's very important that organizations wrap their arms around that and really leverage that.

Phil Wagner

You knocked that out of the park, and you covered many of my questions in one because that's where we were going to go next is what are the benefits of having age diversity? And I think you've laid that point well. So, I want to go back to something else that you said, Kathy. Could you talk about changing times? And I think that story of the woman who's getting ready to go on dialysis and seeking a job really reveals the fractured world in which we live right now. Obviously, we're still in the midst of COVID-19. We're conducting this via Zoom, and all the complexities that come with that aside, we know that the world has certainly changed with COVID-19 changing everything we know about the world and the world of work. What changes for older or aging adults do you foresee coming?

Kathy Black

It's already happened. It's already happened. We saw it really during the recession. And it's also happening now. And that is older adults are those who do lose their jobs are far more likely to not return to that level of income or get a job. Again, we're seeing record numbers of people taking early Social Security, claiming disability. And we also have people reinventing themselves and entering into entrepreneur opportunities, really tapping into other ways to and again. Phil, it's about making money and surviving, but it's also about finding a sense of purpose and meaning. You look at the American ethos, and it is very much a very strong work ethic, particularly among boomers and the older age groups as well. And so, people's identities are heavily wrapped up into their ability to contribute and add. And so we want to have a work environments that are conducive to that.

Phil Wagner

That's excellent. I want to shift directions a little bit more and sort of harken back to the dignity framework that you laid out for us earlier. I work with multiple generations across our programs here, and that's one of the great things about our University, and our business school is that we get them from Gen Z to Boomers who come into our executive MBA program. What are some of the things or what are some of the most important things rather than younger employees Gen Z's, maybe young millennials should keep in mind when they're communicating with older employees. It's not just that ethic of respect. There has to be fundamental communication differences. That's why. Ok, Boomer sort of took off a few years ago. Right. Like, how do we navigate the communication differences between and among generations?

Kathy Black

In some ways, it's useful to look at cohort differences. After all, people were shaped differently. Certainly, Gen Z has grown up quite technologically literate and experienced major life events that have shaped who they are. Every generation has that. But sometimes, generations can be a barrier, and it really comes down to individuals. And some of the most effective things happening out there are really individualizing, personalizing, and pairing people. I'll give you an example. I have students write self-reflection essays what they learned constantly in my course. And I was teaching a sociology of aging course. And of course, we cover everything in their work, etc. And the student wrote that he said, it's because of your class. He must have worked in some environment. There was shift work that every week. I guess there was some shift opportunities that were more prized than others. But he said, Kathy, it's your class that helped me realize there's this older guy that they all didn't like. And it's your class that helped me realize he needed to work because he needed the money, he needed to take the day shift because he couldn't drive at night and that he needed to get out of the house because it was socialization for him and he had something to do. And that level of empathy, by the way, Phil goes both ways. It is not just about, oh, all of these things about the older adult. The older adult needs to also have empathy for that younger worker who's raising a family, who's struggling to put food on the table. So, it's respect. It all goes back to respect Phil and Phil. It doesn't just happen. I mean, sometimes workers just sort of connect, as you know. But what we know is that intentional design is really the way to go with that. And it has to be reciprocal that both are learning from each other. And the gifts are not always apparent. They're really sometimes special insights, but it speaks to our soul Phil when we connect with each other in those ways. And again, I will say that some jobs are just that. They're just a gig for somebody furthers their career. For others, they're a passion. So, again, so much depends on where people are at and what they're wanting in that work environment. But we can all make a difference in the sphere which we interact.

Phil Wagner

I love that. I think intentional design is key here in the Mason School of Business at William & Mary. We recognize sort of what can happen when you bring multiple generations together. And so, we've got a great program that some of our listeners might be familiar with called the Executive Partner Program, where we brought people in back to William & Mary, some alum, some who are just affiliated with the local Williamsburg community who come after serving sometimes decades in the world of work. And they come, mentor, our students work with them, and we create some great synergies across age boundaries. So, we asked some of those executive partners here in the Mason School of Business to provide a question for today, and they all sort of echoed the same themes. But this one was probably the most pointed. And so I want to ask you, one of our executive partners asks, how does the older workforce keep relevant in a world where wisdom has been replaced by data? And by data, they mean Google. Do you have any insight?

Kathy Black

So, we tend to glamorize technology. We are in a technological age. We are the Internet of things, driverless cars, 3D printing, AI. We glamorize technology. And unfortunately, we idolize youth. And I know that the median age at Google and Apple, and Amazon is quite young. But as you know, Phil, there are plenty of people at every age group who can be really great with technology. So, it is just a number. And part of the problem is we are focused on that. And there are some implicit assumptions, even in a statement like that, Phil. And look, Phil, there are no faults here. Technology changes are real. They are in the workflow. And I have a daughter who was working at a hotel, and I stopped in one day to see her, and she was working with an older woman. I said, oh, that's great, Alyssa. How are you doing? And she liked her. And then, a week later, she didn't care for so much. I said, why? She said she can't figure out the computer system, and it's taking her a lot of time to do her work for my daughter to do her work. So, there's an assumption that older people cannot learn. However, that's not really true. And part of it is older adults are sometimes their own worst enemy by being resistant to learning. But the reality is everybody brings gifts. We need to look at how to optimize those gifts and really question those assumptions because there are plenty of listen. There are 20-year-olds who aren't very tech-savvy. So, part of that is really, I think part of the mindset change that does have to occur.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I love that. And I think that's sort of what I'm hearing in your answer is that relevance doesn't mean going out and learning Snapchat or ticktock, right. I think relevance is sharing the insight you have from your experience and fostering meaningful relationships across the generational span because that's what's going to really get us to the humanity. That's what's going to develop that empathy. That's what's going to get us to dignity. So that's super profound. I've got one more question for you, Kathy. It's like the one we ask everybody on this podcast. And in D&I work, I think we often wish that we just had a magic wand that we could wave and fix all of the problems related to those areas of D&I that we care most about. What is one thing that you'd like to see the world of work do to make itself a more inclusive place for aging and aging individuals?

Kathy Black

Well, I think I would probably say if organizations were able to recognize and promote these are little gems where we have businesses where older employees are valued, nobody really knows about them, or you happen to come upon them. But the more we share that and promote that externally as well, the more we start to change and counter some of those stereotypes that are out there. Remember, stereotypes are the beliefs. Wow. How could that be? I thought that I was starting to challenge that, and then it will affect prejudice it will affect discrimination down the road. And so, I think promoting that and recognizing that it's leadership and changing the narrative.

Phil Wagner

I love that changing the narrative. And that's exactly what we're trying to do through this podcast series, change the narrative by refocusing our D&I efforts back on those real, human-lived experiences. So, Kathy Black, thank you so much for joining and sharing some of your research and your insight. So profound. We so appreciate your time. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Kathy Black

Great to speak with you, Phil.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• How ageism is openly accepted in the U.S.
• What implications the gender discrepancy of ageism has on the world of work
• Chronological age vs. functional age
• What Kathleen learned about the intersection of age, race, and gender while writing her book "From Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones"
• What are tensions between inequalities and privileges that are brought about by age in the workplace
• How unpaid labor, like childcare, shapes the role of women in the workforce
• How does the nature of retirement shift among race and gender roles
• How has COVID impacted the planned retirement of older workers

Transcript

Kathleen Slevin

I'll always argue that if you want to understand people in the labor force, you really need a life course perspective. You need to see where they started. You need to see how they progress through the labor force.

Phil Wagner

Hello from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome, listeners, to another episode of Diversity Goes to Work. Thanks, as always, for joining us. It truly is an honor to welcome today's guest to this episode. This episode is really exciting, not just because of the content but because of the prolific nature of our guest. Again, it's an honor to welcome Kate Slevin, who is Chancellor Professor Emeritus of sociology here at William & Mary. Kate is an award-winning researcher and teacher. She's a thought leader. She has served in a variety of administrative capacities here at William & Mary, including as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. And Kate studies the intersections of age and other mechanisms of social inequality. You are in for a true treat. So, Kate, thank you so much for joining us. Before we begin, why don't you go ahead, introduce yourself, tell us who you are, what you do, and then we'll kick off our conversation?

Kathleen Slevin

My name is Kathleen Slevin. I grew up in Northern Ireland as a member of the Catholic minority. I went to a Catholic boarding school in Northern Ireland, and then I went to University in Dublin. I studied sociology, and I came to the United States as a young woman after undergraduate school to the University of Georgia, where I did my degree in sociology. My area of concentration then was gender and gender inequality. And as I progressed in my career, I added an emphasis on age and studying age. And that became a very interesting segue into studying retirement and particularly women in retirement because there was almost in my discipline nothing written about women in retirement. What was written was really quite biased because the assumption was women retire much more easily than men because they go back to being housewives. Well, I said to myself, well, you know what? As a woman in the workforce, I never wanted to be a housewife. So it doesn't really make much sense that, as a retired woman, that would be the attraction to retirement. So that started a series of studies specifically on women in retirement and issues surrounding age and age inequality. And that's really. I have three books, two of them co-author, no all of them co authored, and I have a slew of articles, but they've all concentrated on basically gender and age. And of course, as a woman who is now in an old age myself, I find this kind of even more interesting as I now live what I have been writing about. So that's the short version of my life.

Phil Wagner

A short version, we'll take it. Part of what we try to do in these podcast episodes is do a deep dive in individual areas with the full recognition that, number one, that's impossible. And number two is not best practice. We know that there are so many identity intersections. And one of your books, though, Stumbling Blocks to Stepping really strong book on this issue, looks at the lives and stories of 50 professional African American women. What did you learn about intersections like between age and gender, and race in that project? Can you speak to that?

Kathleen Slevin

Okay, can I go back a little bit just to lay a foundation, because I think it'll make our lives much easier, as we discussed? So I want to first just talk about age and ageism just as a foundation because that kind of covers the ground for everything we'll talk about. So if you think about age, it's an identity, just like race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, and all of these identities really serve as critical locations that shape our lives. And all of them are embedded, as sociologists would say, into social structure. So if you want to look at the workplace, the workforce, all of these entities are embedded into the social structure, and our jobs really are to expose the ways in which they're embedded. And when we do that, one of the things that we see is that age takes on a very unique and special place, especially in the United States. And in general, I will be talking about the United States but because there's a glorification of youthfulness in the United States, and there's a very strong ageism, not just in the workplace but in the society in general. Now, unlike racism and sexism, ageism is openly accepted. People make jokes about old people. Old people make jokes about themselves. So even among the old, it's the one identity, one might say, certainly one contrasted with gender and with race, where those who are occupying this stage of life really make fun of themselves. And we don't find that with race. We don't find that people of color denigrate themselves. We don't find that women, in general, denigrate themselves, but we do find with age that we have such a pervasive emphasis on being youthful in this culture that we do denigrate old age. And so if we look at ageism as a systematic stereotyping and discrimination against people because they are old, what happens is then we start to treat them as other, and that becomes a problem. And of course, that starts to intersect with other identities, whether it's gender being one of the most powerful ones because we know that women experience ageism earlier than men, and we know that in general, women experience more ageism than men. Part of that has to do with the fact that we live in a culture of youthfulness and we emphasize looking young. And so we put that onus on women more than men, so that when men start to age, we say, oh, to you, for example, you look so distinguished. Oh, don't you look such a lovely grey-haired man? He looks so distinguished. Women of the same age, we say, yes, they're really past their prime. So that becomes a problem that has all sorts of implications for the world of work. So we know, and I'm almost finished, that being old and the notion of old carries a very unique stigma with it. And we know that bodies, our bodies are the sites of the judgment about age. We live in a culture that where age is being biomedicalized. And so if you, Philip or me, decide, you know what, I don't like to look old. I really am going to do things to make myself look more youthful. I'm going to dye my hair. I'm going to Botox my face. I'm going to get cosmetic surgery. We now know that age a lot. We can't change our race. We can increasingly maybe play with gender, but we certainly can't change our race, but we can do things biomedically to make ourselves look younger. That presents its own set of challenges. And I'm going to make two other points about age. If we look at age, particularly as we are sociologists, we talk about chronological age, and that is obviously, I am 40, I am 50, I am 60, the chronology of age. And we know that people can be seen as old at different stages. And I'll give some examples, and it's important for employment. A woman model at 30 could be considered old. A professional football player at 40 is usually considered old, but a Senator who is 70 is considered an appropriate age to be in that role. So chronological age is a complicated and often not particularly useful way to look at people in the labor force. So that's number one. Secondly, we have functional age, and functional age is really about an individual's physical and mental capabilities. So are you Phil at your age? Are you physically and mentally? Do you have disabilities? How is your eyesight, how's your body strength, and so forth? So functional age is a much different thing. But the one thing that we know is that, unlike functional age, chronological age is a very poor predictor of many things, including what happens in the labor force. So I wanted to kind of lay that foundation.

Phil Wagner

No, that's such a good foundation because I think that it's so important to distinguish those avenues. And we just got done recording an episode for this series on size diversity and thinking about the Biomedicalization of weight and size configurations. So it really shows how malleable some of these are, while they're also permeable, such a good foundation. Let's talk about age, then, as an intersecting concept. So again, in that book, Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones, you really look at the lives and stories of African American women who are professionals and working through the intersections of age, gender, race, three really complicated intersecting variables. What did you find out in that project? What does that do to shape your understanding of the topic we're talking about?

Kathleen Slevin

Fascinating. Well, first of all, it's provided me with my own role model. These women provided me with my own role model for retirement. Why don't we look at these women? We looked at these women for a very pragmatic reason. They were part of a cohort where their white counterparts were typically not in the labor force or if they had been in the labor force. So these women, when I interviewed them, their average age was 69. They were highly educated. Twenty-four of them had master's degrees. Nine of them had PhDs. They were not typical, but they were women who had always been in the labor force, unlike their white contemporaries, because white privileged women, educated women at the time these women were coming up, dropped out when they had children. So to see these women through their life course in the labor force and then to see them in retirement presented us as sociologists with a very interesting way of seeing a group of women who had never exited the labor force and they had come through the labor force through tremendous systemic racism and tremendous systemic sexism. And so the intersection of those created for them life opportunities that had they been white and had they been male, many of them probably would have ended up being President of the United States or some of them. I mean, they were just so well qualified, but they worked in segregated they were almost all in education because that's all that was available to them. We have one lawyer. We have one MD. The rest were in education. That's what was available in the 1950s and 60s to educated women. So they went through their work lives in a very, very segregated system. We took a life course perspective. And I think I'll always argue that if you want to understand people in the labor force, you really need a life course perspective. You need to see where they started. You need to see how they progressed through the labor force. And so these women, in many ways, they were very successful, certainly compared to they were very successful they didn't have peers, let's put it that way. But race and gender very powerfully shaped their work lives. As I said, they experienced a lot of very blatant discrimination. Promotions they didn't get. Salaries they were in school systems. Once the school systems integrated, they were actually in school systems where they could demonstrate they could look at the statistics and find that they were getting paid several thousand dollars a year and less than some white women with less qualifications than they had. So the discrimination that they faced was really pervasive. But they were very resilient, strong women. So they were; also, I think one of the things that fascinates us about them, certainly compared to their white cohorts, if you look at white people, even today in the labor force, white people tend to take a very individualistic notion of success. My success is my success, and what I do is about me. Whereas African Americans and particularly women of the generation we interviewed, very much saw their role as race uplift. They saw that as educators, their job was not just to educate kids. It was to take particularly black kids from disadvantaged backgrounds and to give them the advantages and the education that they needed in order to succeed. They were conscious of that. They spent time with these kids outside school. They mentored these kids. They did what in the sociology literature is called race work. They were very conscious of doing race work. And then finally, I would say that when we talk to them as we were talking to them in retirement, we find that they engaged in tremendous unpaid labor in retirement. Unlike their white counterparts, who, for example, privileged white women would tend to go to museums and work as dolcents in museums, or they would work in garden clubs or whatever affluent white women do. These women spent their time working in the black community to advantage or to minimize the disadvantage, particularly young people in the black community were experiencing. So just one little example, when I would try to get on their calendars now, these are retired. Remember when I tried to get on their calendars, it often took me three to four weeks to get on their calendars. They were like, oh, no, I have three things to do this day, and I have to go to the school system, and I'm tutoring kids. It was unbelievable. So I think it underscored the way that race and gender intersected throughout their lives, the discrimination, the race work that they did, the unpaid labor that they did in retirement to really better their communities.

Phil Wagner

That unpaid labor is something we definitely want to talk through as well. We're going to run a podcast episode later in the series on the role that particularly people of color, and now I think Asian American people as well are carrying into the world of workplace from the trauma that exists outside. That doesn't go away when you clock into your nine to five, right.

Kathleen Slevin

Exactly.

Phil Wagner

All of the extra responsibilities that are carried along, and certainly want to explore that. But you've also written on age as a sort of prime space for social inequality. What are the tensions between inequalities that are brought about by age in the workplace? And then what about the privileges brought about by age, things like security and longevity, and all the things that come with tenure in the workplace?

Kathleen Slevin

Right. I think the most useful concept to help us explore that is the notion of cumulative advantage and cumulative disadvantage because if you look at cumulative advantage and you take a life course perspective, a man or woman, and let's say a white man, just for the sake of argument, a white man who in his earlier life has been very advantaged, has gone to the right schools, has been mentored by other powerful white men who have taken them along, who has played golf, who has had all of the unseen advantages that come with being a privileged person and being surrounded by privileged persons, then I think you see how cumulative advantage really works. And as that man goes up the hierarchy and then becomes an older man, you often find he is turning backward, and he is doing the same thing typically to other white men because that's who remind him of himself. So we know those stories of cumulative advantage, and then the other side of that coin is cumulative disadvantage. So you start off on the wrong side of the tracks. You don't go to the schools where you have the contacts. You get into the workforce. You're kind of marginalized in the workforce. Promotions come along, and for a variety of reasons, you don't get the promotion. Then you have how all of these issues play out of privilege and disadvantage. We know that men of color don't have the same advantages that white men have. We know that white women have advantages. And I would be a very good example of that myself. Even though I came as an immigrant, nobody stopped ever in my career. Nobody stopped and said, you know what? You talk weird. Where are you from? They would say, oh, I love your accent. Where are you from? Ireland. I love Ireland. And so they would love me. I had Turkish friends who were colleagues. And when they went into the classroom, for example, they had a hard time. Students were like. I don't understand you. Why don't you speak English the way the rest of us speak English? So there you see kind of cumulative disadvantage, even if you look, say, at white women.

Phil Wagner

But doesn't that change who then or how we teach? So thinking as educators, so often, we reduce this to a simple upward trajectory based on merit. Right. Like based on cumulative achievements. And I think fundamentally rewrites our pedagogical responsibility to prepare students with diverse experiences for the realities that may not be necessarily how it works.

Kathleen Slevin

Yes. Well, let's even talk a little bit there, Phil, about diversity within groups, and that's kind of what I was hinting at. But one of the things that we do when we stereotype is that we homogenized members of the group. We treat them all the same. All old people are the same. All Latinos are the same. All Asians are the same. And we know that that is such a false way, whether we're in the labor force or not, to homogenize people. For example, if you look at immigrants, somebody could be a recent arrival. They could be a fifth-generation American. Hispanic or Latinx are very diverse. You have Mexican Americans who are mostly seen as Brown. You have Puerto Ricans who are mostly seen as black. You have Cubans who are often seen as white. You have Asians who are also very diverse. You have Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean. So the extent to which, whether in the workplace or the real world, that we homogenize a group and say, oh, they're all immigrants, or they're all Asians, or they're all whatever, we're doing an enormous disservice to diversity. Does that make sense?

Phil Wagner

That makes total sense. I couldn't even respond because I'm really trying to process because there's such nuance here. For as much as we're talking about age simultaneously, we aren't. Because we can't, right. That goes back. You cannot reduce down to just the simplest root of it all because those roots are so intersectional. It's so strong. So there seems to be another layer of inequality here. And you hinted at this just a bit ago that your work really touches on. And then, when we think of the labor force, the labor market, when we think about labor, we think of paid labor. Right. Can you speak to the issue of unpaid labor, particularly for women, and how that shapes their role?

Kathleen Slevin

Yeah, there's a huge amount written in sociology about unpaid labor, and I've always loved that literature. And, of course, when we talk about unpaid labor, it's not exclusively the labor of women, although it is certainly predominantly the labor of women. And when we look at it in the case of women, we need to look at women who are working outside the home. So we know, for example, that working mothers, full-time working mothers spend 50% more time each day caring for kids than fathers. That's unpaid labor. We know in this century, and we know in the last certainly 30 to 40 years, that men have been much more engaged in household work than their fathers or grandfathers were. But still, women still carry the burden. And I'll give you a very personal example. When we talk about, we're going to talk more about COVID. I have a daughter who's in her 30s, married, with two young children, very privileged. She's a fertility nurse. Her husband is a Vice President of a start-up. They have two little kids under four and six. COVID hit and the nanny. So they were privileged enough to have a nanny. The nanny got freaked out, and she said, I'm out of here. And the five-year-old was starting kindergarten online. So my daughter had to quit her job. Now, why did they decide that? They decided that because her husband made more money than her. Again, the unpaid labor by default came to the woman in the family, and she was the one who has to. She is the one. It's not that he doesn't help, but she carries the burden of the unpaid labor of childcare. So childcare is a very important part of unpaid labor. But throughout the life course, another very important part of unpaid labor is looking after older members of the family, or if you're at my stage, looking after grandkids. And those are the jobs that fall predominantly to women, particularly in the United States. And, of course, the pandemic absolutely ratcheted up the pressure on women to do that unpaid labor, even more than they had been doing, for they were working two jobs.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. We're going to have the pandemic for sure because I want to set it up. But you raise this notion of this sort of mythical ideal of empowerment that comes from being a woman and being active in the workforce. And there's this other mythical ideal we have surrounding much later in life, which is retirement.

Kathleen Slevin

The golden years.

Phil Wagner

The golden years, right. Like the very idea of retirement that varies greatly by demographic. That's mythical, too, that there's this automatic dream that we think after a 40-year work career, we're just going to settle in and play golf forever, right.

Kathleen Slevin

Look at the ads on television, Phil. You see a very good-looking, predominantly white, sometimes upper-class Blacks. They're standing on a dock. They have a glass of wine in their hand. The sun is setting, and they're just like, what will we do tomorrow? We've reached the good life and so forth. That's such an anathema to what most people experience. That's the life of white affluence. That is not the life that working-class men experience because many of them have to re-enter the labor force in order to make enough money to survive retirement. And, of course, it most certainly is not the life that women, unless they're extremely affluent, have.

Phil Wagner

Yeah. So how does the nature of retirement from the perspective of your work, how does that shift than by those demographic intersections? Can you observe that in any way?

Kathleen Slevin

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at social class, you certainly can see that blue-collar. Let me backtrack a little bit. So you have a situation where you have bodies that are not stressed on a daily basis in terms of your physicality. If there's stresses because you go to the gym or because you go running or whatever, you do not have a job that debilitates your body. Blue-collar men of all races have jobs. And women, whether they're waitresses carrying heavy trays or they're working for Amazon, and they're on their feet 14 hours a day, and their legs are killing them. Their bodies, for lack of a better word, disintegrate much earlier in their lives than people of privilege, like all of us who sit at desks, men and women who work in the fields and are the laborers who are providing our food for us, the same thing, back-breaking work without adequate health benefits. So there's the other part, adequate health benefits. So I used to always say to my students, look at me, a privileged woman who has had excellent health care all of her life, who has had nothing but the best, who exercises for pleasure, who keeps fit. I'm 73 now, and I say this is what 73 and privilege looks like. Take somebody who's 73 who's been working in the fields. Their bodies are going to be in much worse shape. And the way in which they enter and exit the labor force is going to be shaped by their bodily, the way that their bodies have been disintegrating, for lack of a better word. Does that make sense?

Phil Wagner

It makes total sense. And this is not a planned question. So sorry for any surprises, but you keep using this word, that it's the P-word, right. And that's privilege and even teaching diversity courses among students and certainly working among faculty and business professionals. That word is a bad word. I mean, that is a word that elicits so much emotion. Is that just sociological lingo, or how do you make that term palatable?

Kathleen Slevin

How else can you describe the advantages? Call it an advantage. In sociology, it's not a bad word. It's just a descriptive term. It's a non-pejorative descriptive term to describe the lives and the work experiences, but the lives in general of people who have been advantaged by health care, by education, by choices of jobs in the labor force, by availability of childcare, name all of the aspects that create advantage.

Phil Wagner

And the work that you do is so helpful in illuminating that conversation because I think when we work with students to simply recognize privilege as not something to fear or be ashamed of but as a catalyst to produce change, you get those knee jerk reactions to say, well, I had a tough go of it. I didn't grow up rich, and it's so much deeper than that. And it's those intersections again that I think thank you for the work that you do. You talked about COVID earlier, and we want to ask about that as well. So we're certainly still in the midst of COVID-19. As we record this, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Not sure what the other side will look like, but we see another perspective or change coming, we think. So. How has COVID impacted the planned post-professional or retirement life of older workers? Do you have any insight on what COVID did?

Kathleen Slevin

I don't think we know yet, but what do we know, or what can we conjecture? Well, we know that age and older age makes workers much more vulnerable to the virus, and so we know that many had to quit work unwillingly in order to minimize the risk of dying or getting infected. Now, that's if they could afford to. But if they couldn't afford to, and many millions could not afford to, whether they were on the front line, they were essential workers, and so forth. They had no option but to go to work and expose themselves. And many, particularly minorities and people of color, have died at much higher rates because they did not have a choice. The three of us had a choice to sit in our lovely houses and work online. And that is not a choice that everybody has had. And let me give you an example of again of age. I listened early on in the pandemic. I listened to the school Superintendent of Virginia Beach talking about how the teachers her supply of teachers had changed. And she said typically, in a summer, I would get 20 unexpected retirements. And she said last year, in one month, I got 200.

Phil Wagner

Whoa.

Kathleen Slevin

I got 200. Now, teachers, certainly they're not, on the scheme of things, well paid, but they do have advantages that blue-collar people do not have. They have pensions or some form of financial security that allows them to withdraw from the labor force. They may re-enter at another time, but they can withdraw in a way that a blue-collar person can't afford to withdraw. They have to pay the rent, and they don't have a pension, and they don't have a 401K, or there's not enough in their 401K to cover everything. So I think in that way, age and privilege intersect in very interesting ways. And, of course, the ways in which everybody's retirement income has been affected by COVID remains to be seen. People may have to work longer. They probably will have to work longer, particularly those in the service sector. And those in nonunionized jobs because they're going to have to make up for loss. They're going to have to make up for lost time. And many of them have been in tremendous and are in tremendous debt. That's going to take them years to get out of. So their retirements are going to be well. They will not retire. That's my prediction. They will die with their boots on because they won't be able to retire. But as opposed to again, I use that term, not pejoratively privileged, particularly privileged white men, when they exit the labor force, sometimes they re-enter by choice, and they become consultants.

Phil Wagner

Yeah.

Kathleen Slevin

That's a choice. Most blue-collar people who exit and re-enter the labor force do not do so as a choice. They do so because they need the income. So I think COVID, of course, everything you read about women have said that COVID has knocked working women back ten years, and I believe it. And certainly the example I gave you of my daughter, she's lost a year of income. She's lost a year of contributions to her 401K. She's lost a promotion that she could have had. That's going to be the story for many women. Now, on the other side of that coin, she could afford to only do the unpaid labor.

Phil Wagner

There's so many again, I keep using the term, but complicated intersections for as dire as the situation is, the goal of our podcast, the goal of our teaching, I think the goal of our day to day work is recognizing that we don't have a magic wand to just wave and fix everything. But by creating awareness and a sense of personal responsibility and ownership, we can start to address some of the systemic inequality as it relates to these issues. But let's assume that we did have a magic wand because I sit and think about that often. If you had a magic wand and you could just wave it, what is one thing you would waive it, and you'd wish that the world of work would do to become a more inclusive place for the people that you've worked with and what your work has revealed.

Kathleen Slevin

I have thought about this so much since you raised it. It's not one answer.

Phil Wagner

Okay. That's all right.

Kathleen Slevin

Okay. So I would say if I were to take the absolutely global big picture, what would it be? It would be, again, taking a life history perspective. And I would say we need to begin by reducing inequities and disrupting all of the ways that needs to be disruptive so that we can get a fairer and more level playing field. So that we would realign labor market policies with schools, with daycare systems, with the modern realities of working parents. Then we would have a permanent federal paid parental leave policy that we would have subsidized daycare, that we would enter the 21st century, for God's sake, like most of the Scandinavian countries, and say, you know, this is the reality. We have fathers and mothers in the workforce, and we cannot ignore that. We cannot leave them on their own. So it would be to create a world of work that reflects the real world. And of course, you know this, work in the United States, people are obsessed by work. It takes a dominance in their lives. Now you say, well, it has to because I have to make a living. But if you look at vacations in other Western, quote, developed economies, you find that when my husband goes with me to Ireland or to France, he's like, oh, my God, they're on vacation all the time because people do not work. They don't live to work. So I think that the United States, I don't see it coming in my lifetime, but I think that we've got to improve wage equality. We have got to decrease the gender-race gap. We've got to be realistic and say we've got to realign or align our policies with the real world. Does that make sense?

Phil Wagner

It makes such sense. And I'm just sitting here so inspired. For as important as the work is that you do, you're also just a delight to speak with. So if you ever lecture, count me in as a student in the front row because I think we're both here to learn, too. We've committed our lives to this. Our research focuses on this. But for every element, you know, there are some elements that you do not or areas that can continue to grow. I really appreciate you taking the time to educate us. I look forward to reading more of your work, but this means so much to us. I think it's going to just take this conversation in such a powerful direction. So now that we greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Kathleen Slevin

It is my pleasure.

Phil Wagner

Thanks for taking a second to listen to Diversity Goes to Work. If you like what you heard, share the show with a friend, leave us a review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, and reach out because we're always looking for new friends. And if you'd like to learn more about any of our programs or initiatives is here in the business school at William & Mary, be sure to visit us at mason.wm.edu. Until next time.

Show Notes

• Amalhin's career journey through William & Mary to US Aid
• What drives Amalhin to do the work that she does
• What Amahlin has learned about DEI in her work
• How the global picture of diversity, equity, and inclusion informs the modern landscape of DEI work
• What it means to be a professional activist
• Reconciling the pursuit of foreign aid with the threat of colonialism
• Best practices for those who want to enter the professional world of advocacy

Transcript

Amahlin Shek

Solutions cannot be made and designed in our little Ivory towers of the agency and headquarters. The solutions have to be local because, at the end of the day, problems, yes, are local, but they do not respect boundaries. They're generally regional in nature.

Phil Wagner

Hello, from the halls of the Mason School of Business here at William & Mary. I'm Phil, and this is Diversity Goes to Work. Buckle up because we're getting ready to take a deep dive into the real human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity work in the world of work. Should be fun. Welcome listeners again to another episode of Diversity Goes to Work, the podcast where we center real, human lived experiences that shape and guide our diversity, equity, and inclusion work. I'm joined today by an alum of the College, somebody who's doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work in a different way than what you might suspect. Amalhin Shek has spent the last eight years working for U.S. aid in a variety of different capacities, working on everything from COVID-19 response to Malaria response in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is her current role. She was a student at William & Mary, and she got her B.S. in public health here. Along with an MPH at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. She brings an impressive background in research, in planning, in strategy. Amelia, welcome to our podcast and thank you for joining us.

Amalhin Shek

Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Phil Wagner

So my first question is probably a little bit simplistic to you, but you bring such impressive experience. Can you break down for us a little bit more of who you are and the work you do day-to-day?

Amalhin Shek

Yes, absolutely. So I finished up at college with a degree in public health. I really dove into that by virtue of being a member of SOMOS, a Student Organization for Medical Outreach and Sustainability, where I had the opportunity of traveling to the Dominican Republic at least once or twice a year and really getting a sense for what fieldwork in the global health field actually entailed. That led me to decide maybe I don't want to stay on the pre-med route, maybe I don't want to be domestic and do just the clinical work, and drove me really in the direction of global health programming, design, and management, which is where I am now. And so I will caveat that I am here in my own capacity as an alumna of the College, and any of the opinions or views that I express are my own and not necessarily those of USA. So that brings me to where I am now, which is currently where I serve as a Malaria advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development. And so, in my current role, I work with a range of our implementing partners, foundations, other U.S. government agencies, including the CDC, truly design and implement activities that are aimed at controlling and eliminating malaria in the Americas. As a member of our Bureau health team, I also backstop our South America regional health programs with a primary focus on our work in Bolivia and Venezuela. And so we are a tiny team. So as an umbrella over each of our scopes is really the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before moving into this role, I worked on our Emerging Pandemic Threats program, where we were implementing the president's global health security agenda and our Bureau for Global Health and doing everything from Ebola, Yellow Fever, and obviously, most recently, COVID response to also really instilling a sense of a one health, a planetary approach to emerging stenotic disease prevention, detection, and response.

Phil Wagner

Just such an impressive background, and Amalhin, I know that you bring experience in research and in policy. I mean, you worked in research here at William & Mary. That was one of your professional roles. I'm curious what drove you to do this work? You know, today, we're thinking about casting a much wider net on what diversity, equity, and inclusion work looks like. And of course, of course, this isn't you being a D&I officer, but what you do certainly has an inclusion-focused, that planetary approach. I'm wondering if you can speak to what drives you to do this work.

Amalhin Shek

Yeah. So I could say; personally, I'm the child of two professionals who, in their roles in the U.S., were primarily educators, but also my dad worked in the health field as a clinical psychologist for a public school system. My mom's first career was an optometrist. I think that both education and health are kind of just in my blood. As a child of immigrants, however, though, I also just have this desire to learn, meet, understand, and interact with as many different cultures and backgrounds as possible. And just by virtue of the experiences I've had in traveling in my William & Mary experience, meeting so many peers from just all over the world and really learning about just the diversity of backgrounds, not just ethnic and cultural, but also in terms of just lived experiences, I would say a lot of that just kind of drove that desire to make sure that in my career I could work globally, and I could address the moments in situations where I saw issues of inequity and where I could really say what I felt needed to be said about social injustices. And by virtue of having this interest in health and a science background at the College, have been able to more or less combine those two interests when it comes to designing our programs and really working with the array of implementing partners, but also multilateral agencies and donors that are, in essence, trying to collaborate to solve a lot of these big challenges in global health.

Phil Wagner

You set up perfectly for where we're going next. You've been on sort of the front lines of some strategy and planning on really important global health initiatives. Of course, we're talking about COVID-19, but also malaria, other global health crises that have fleshed out. I'm wondering in that capacity, science background, research background, policy background. But what have you learned about diversity, equity, and inclusion in your work?

Amalhin Shek

Yeah. So one of the biggest pieces and something that I would say all international development and donor agencies are still grappling with and will continue to grapple with for at least a little bit longer is that solutions cannot be made and designed in our little Ivory towers of the agency and headquarters. The solutions have to be local because, at the end of the day, problems, yes, are local, but they do not respect boundaries. They're generally regional in nature. And so you need to one learn from the local experts, learn from the lived experiences of the communities that you're serving, and making sure that you have that multitude of voices at the table so that you can both learn from colleagues from across different regions, but also help promote, again, that trans boundary. I don't want to call it south to south, which is what we say generally, but country to country and partner to partner collaboration, teaching, and learning. One big example of this from my partner portfolio, the president's initiative, is that recently a group of African scientists wrote an open letter to PMI, essentially calling us out on an approach to just the way that a program was designed in a manner that it did not really tap into the voices of local leaders, local experts. And the response was one of acknowledgment, one of humility, and one of ensuring that we moving forward, can create those equitable and dignified partnerships and really making sure that we really tap into the ideas of those who share these lived experiences of the communities that are most affected by the diseases that will strengthen all of our collective work.

Phil Wagner

This is so good because it speaks to so many of the themes that we've explored with our other guests. I love how you talk about the Ivory tower solution, and I think so much of D&I work, even in sort of the Western organizational frame, follows that approach. Right. A bunch of academics or consultants got together, pull up a plan or a blueprint, make an acronym, send it out as the package to be adopted. But this is contextual. And certainly, on the global framework, there's context, there's humility. There are so many great themes on the list. I appreciate you really speaking to those as well. And to that point, I think so much of our D&I work specifically is really Western-centric. And I think I'm guilty of that even on this podcast or sometimes even in the way that I teach because we work with so many students here in Williamsburg. We're going to go out to typically organizations in North America. But your work has taken you global. What I love about our programs here is there's a strong global footprint. I'm wondering from your perspective what that global picture of inclusion tells us about the modern landscape of diversity and inclusion work. Can you speak to the global clarification that might come from your work?

Amalhin Shek

Yeah, I would say kind of following this theme of really decolonizing development and global health. And just again, that Western approach to our problem solving, it does have to be grounded in a bit of self-reflection and introspection in terms of our role in problem creation. And so one piece of it really is taking that step back and thinking about the power dynamics when we're thinking about the development of the solutions, considering who the experts are and how we view that, but then also really becoming aware of our biases, admitting them and making sure that we are inviting the local experts who for generations in most places have been the ones doing the biodiversity conservation work, have been working on matters of land rights and really protecting their environments. But I think the other piece of it is making sure that in our own Western coordination of the work, making sure that we are inclusive, that we're flexible of the different lived experiences, the different types of degrees that people come with, and making sure that we're not limiting these dialogues to just the folks with the Ph.D. or the bench research experience, and that we are including folks from all countries of origin, from all walks of life and levels of experience. It doesn't just have to be the person with the multiple titles, multiple degrees. You can learn as much from somebody who has been a community organizer as you can obviously from somebody who has been in the research mix for a long time. And I think really, at the end of the day, we do have to consider who it is that's in control of the design of implementation and who's getting credit and take into account that this Western-centric approach won't work everywhere. It's not the most sustainable approach either. And really, ultimately, what we need is that community-based understanding of the power dynamics. And it's not just at the international level. It's really sub-national levels, even just the household levels in our work. We have to consider that sexism, racism, classism, the just caste systems playing out differently across different regions of the world has to be considered. And again, really, at the end of the day, acknowledging our own role as the Western world in all of this and really reconciling with the fact that many of the inequities we see, for example, right now in my current role, a lot of the inequities we see across Latin America and the Caribbean are rooted in colonialism and both in that original Spanish conquistadores but also recent interventionism. We do have to kind of consider what are the ramifications of these efforts and how we move forward from that, and again, are humble in admitting and reconcile and improve our work moving forward.

Phil Wagner

I'd think that you speak to so many things, again, that many of our past guests have spoken to as well, particularly as it relates to taking up space or dominating space in this conversation. These problems are complex, multifaceted, and span the entire globe. So there's room for everybody. But it's about being mindful of role and power and space and voice. It's really powerful, Amalhin. Part of our goal in this episode, as I mentioned to you, is to really cast a wider net on what it means to do D&I work. I teach a lot of students at the College, but I teach a lot of graduate students across almost all of our graduate programs. And I'm seeing a real hunger, a professional hunger, to do diversity and inclusion work. These are deeply held convictions that students have. And so, I think your work is a great sort of snapshot as to where inclusion passions can drive you towards professional endeavors. And so, I want to toe that fine line between employment and advocacy. You work in a field where your professional experience is, at least in some capacity to me, activism. Right. I mean, you're active on behalf of communities who need assistance. Do you see this as activism? Does USAID see this as activism? I'm just wondering what your sort of lens is as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion, and activism as it relates to the work that you do. Can you clarify for us?

Amalhin Shek

Yeah. So again, that personal capacity, and I guess just thinking about the definition of the word activism and something in considering this, is that at its root and in the most basic of senses, you can look at activism as campaigning for some kind of social change. And when we think about USAID versus, obviously, the personal perspective of the agency's employees and why those of us who go into development go into it. I think we kind of find this middle ground because we might have on one end of it, the technical advocacy, and then on the other piece of it, professionals who are, like, extremely passionate about their technical roles to a point of being activists on them. At the end of the day, as an agency, we're working on this ongoing social change. And so that's obviously something that is both internal to the place of work within our agency. We have employee resource groups. We have our Hispanic employee Council and foreign affairs agencies, where part of our work really is looking at how we shift policies to make sure that we are recruiting, retaining, and promoting members of the Latinx community within the agency. Our women at aid group does the same for making a workplace that is more women supportive, friendly. And so, there is quite a bit of that inside of the workplace. I think that it's something obviously that 2020 drove home for so many industries and for so many workplaces. But I guess when we think about it externally facing in terms of the work that USAID as a technical agency does, is that we, at the end of the day, have a role in implementing U.S. foreign assistance using that sound technical evidence. So we have experts in fields ranging from agriculture and biodiversity conservation to HIV AIDS to veterinary science, to world-renowned economists who are working in their respective technical areas and in their regional bureaus and missions to essentially design programs that are addressing the key development challenges of our partner countries. And so because we have this technical approach, I don't think that we can call it direct activism, but rather the fact that we are motivating social change by enabling citizens of our partner countries to not just come to us and tell us and help us identify the problems, but ultimately collaborating with them and our host country governments to really create those enabling environments to address those challenges.

Phil Wagner

Yeah, I think that fits perfectly with the interest of many of our students. Right. That there is, again, this deep-seated hunger to drive forward positive social change and to marry that with a professional skill set. And I think your work is a great example of how that can be done to truly impressive and impactful professional endeavors. So thanks for toiling with the nuances of language there for us. Amalhin, we talked about this a little bit earlier, and I want to circle back because I think it's an important question. You talked about being mindful in your approach and how even USAID and development as a whole very mindful of context and location sell to sell. I'm wondering how you reconcile working in foreign assistance with an understanding of the colonial impacts that foreign policy can have, sometimes in well-intentioned but unhelpful ways. How does that play out, particularly the personal level, somebody involved in those development efforts?

Amalhin Shek

I will be totally honest. It's difficult. There are days when I may be hearing a conversation, hearing an anecdote, and really have to go through the mental gymnastics of understanding the history and the rationale from one perspective while considering the foreign policy piece of it. Right. And kind of the various ethos of agency of where I'm working. And so I think that for anybody who is again, a child of immigrants and our parents came to the U.S. for opportunity and for whatever reason, parents and family leave their countries of origin, I think that we do have to and have to take advantage and get the opportunity and take advantage of the privilege that we have in having had the experience of going to a University that allowed us to explore what we were interested in and that really developed those technical skill sets that then in our professional lives, empower us to think critically about these issues and also come to solutions, whether it is in the specific way the project is designed or the way in which we're empowered to ask our implementing partners or ask the folks on the ground to do the work in a way that is inclusive and in a way that is responsive of those potential unintended consequences as I speak to just our role in admitting our wrongs or failures and reconciling those. One example of that is through our current environmental and natural resources management frameworks efforts, where we're really looking at addressing environmental justice as a social justice issue. And so this means inviting diverse voices that we haven't traditionally brought i