In this episode we discuss: What can companies do to become more inclusive, equitable and diverse? We are joined by Audrey ROOFEH, Founder & CEO Mariana Strategies-Tory Burch Foundation Fellow-DEIA lead

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We chat about the following with Audrey Roofeh: 

• What are the crucial components for implementing effective DEI policies?
• Why investing in middle managers and equipping them with skills in emotional intelligence, conflict management, and building psychological safety is essential.
• What does the retention of diverse talent require? 
• How leadership can become more comfortable and capable in discussing DEI topics.
• How to take action on DEI.

References 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/roofeh/
• www.marianastrategies.com
• youtube.com/@mariana_strategies/

Biography 

Audrey Roofeh is the CEO of Mariana Strategies, a workplace culture consulting firm focused on creating safe and inclusive workplaces. We make it possible to have the important, difficult conversations that drive change. 

In 2017 when #MeToo hit, Audrey quit her job managing a team of lawyers at a non-profit to start Mariana Strategies. From the beginning, her goal was to help organizations build and sustain workplaces where people feel valued, trusted, and able to be their authentic selves - without harassment, discrimination, or other all too prevalent workplace challenges. 

Since then, Audrey and her team has worked with government agencies, non-profit clients, and private sector businesses in the US and beyond. 

The best thing any client has said about Audrey is that she makes hard conversations easy to have. 

To learn more about Beth and Brandon or to find out about sponsorship opportunities click here. 

Summary

00:00 Introduction

19:22 The Importance of Policies and the 'Boring Stuff'

20:28 The Role of Leadership in Promoting DEI

25:35 Equipping Middle Managers for DEI Success

31:31 Measuring Progress and Taking Action to Subvert Biases

33:52 Creating an Inclusive Environment

39:11 Using Empathy to Address Inclusion Challenges

42:49 Resources

44:33 Taking Action on DEI

Unknown Speaker 0:00

Music.

Brandon 0:05

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the operations room, a podcast for coos. We are excited in jazz to be here today. How are you Bethany,

Bethany Ayers 0:14

excited in jazz? In all seriousness, yeah, it's been a good week. I went to a photography exhibition this week. I thought it would be worth sharing, because this should be subtitled Bethany's talented friends as the episode. I've known Audrey since uni days, and I didn't have a lot of friends at uni, because I spent most of my time going to Swarthmore, Pennsylvania to hang out with my boyfriend at the time, and so didn't have time for socializing with all of these other people in New York. But Audrey cut through the noise, and she was a keeper, so I'm excited to have that conversation with her and share it with you. But this week, I also went to a photography exhibition of one of my very talented high school friends. Oh, nice. Okay, somebody to come out of Albuquerque. So he is also over here on a highly talented visa, or he was, until he became a citizen. You know, like how they have the tech, highly talented visa ones, they also have them for the arts. Well, I do. I didn't realize that, yes, and you have to have won, like, one of the big awards to be considered for it. And he has won an Emmy for his work on the Dexter, opening Dexter,

Brandon 1:40

yeah. What do you mean the TV show? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. What did he do for Dexter? The

Bethany Ayers 1:45

opening sequence. Won an Emmy for it really, oh,

Brandon 1:49

yeah. That opening sequence is awesome. Like, this is not the new Dexter, but the old Dexter. We're talking about the old one, yeah, yeah. That was super compelling. Yeah.

Bethany Ayers 1:57

You know how, like on the Oscars, they have all of those awards that you never hear about, where they just show pictures of people,

Speaker 1 2:03

best audio engineer, analyst, supporting whatever, exactly. And

Bethany Ayers 2:08

so in the Emmys, they have best title sequence as one of the categories. And he won that. And then he's also won two can awards. So anyhow, another talented friend, and he had a show. It was his photography and a painter, erotic gay art. I think it's the best way of of putting it. It was during London fetish week, which I didn't know was a thing, but I've learned. And also it says London fetish week, which you would think is all sexualities and genders, but then looking into it, it's actually like gay London fetish week. It's only guy stuff, and they have dress codes for a lot of the events. And then they have pictures fetish dress codes, fetish dress codes, and they have pictures of what's acceptable so because, basically, they just don't want people showing up in their normal clothes. But interestingly, it also has a really big block letters on the bottom. Being naked is not a dress code. So you actually have to wear clothes. They just have to be fetishy clothes. So there was like a leather one, a rubber one, a pup, one, an athletic gear one, but it's not like tracky bottoms and a sweatshirt athletic gear. It's NFL football outfit or wrestling outfit, or they listed a few others. So like skin tight athletic gear, military and then, I think, on occasion, suit and tie can be considered

Brandon 3:45

fetish. I like that list. And then we finish with the suit and tie that's somehow fitting

Bethany Ayers 3:51

that might, depending on the scenario, be included in,

Speaker 1 3:56

depending on the tightness of the suit and tie, or,

Bethany Ayers 3:59

I guess, whatever event it is, and then they have people wearing all of the different outfits to show what's acceptable. And so it's totally different culture. And on the night, there was a real mix of people in fetish clothes and just people wearing normal clothes, because I guess this one didn't have a dress code, or it did, but not all of us knew about it. I felt very, very underdressed,

Brandon 4:28

underdressed Zimmer or just not finished enough.

Bethany Ayers 4:32

I just had not made nearly enough of an effort. There was one guy who showed up in basically the matrix outfit with, like, leather Cape kind of thing. I was very impressed. And also I know his photography, anyhow, I've seen it over the years. But these were really big, printed on metal. They're graphic, let's say. But there was only one penis in all 20 images. And. Everything else was just, I guess technically, would meet a PG rating, except the innuendo of it and the sensuality and the sexuality was palpable. But really, it would technically be pretty lightly rated. It was really cool.

Unknown Speaker 5:20

So was it good? Did you enjoy it?

Bethany Ayers 5:22

I did. It's interesting to just see different lifestyles and people, and the photography is amazing. I mean, I wouldn't put it on my wall because I think it might freak a lot of people out, but the lighting was amazing, the composition, so like, a huge amount of talent going into it, and so I could appreciate it for that. But then also, it's just like, amazing to see these guys so decked out in the most elaborate, expensive thought through outfits, and then have a chat with them, and they're just like normal guys, and they're just like trying not to notice the pierced nipples and the leather waistcoat while we're talking about the election,

Unknown Speaker 6:09

more mundane conversation, right? And it's

Bethany Ayers 6:12

just nice to you know, it's not something I would ever be a part of or experience, and it's feels interesting to expand horizons, and it's one of the joys of London, isn't it?

Brandon 6:28

So expanding our horizons is maybe a good segue into our conversation today. So we have got a wonderful speaker. Her name is Audrey ruff. She is a former attorney and now founder and CEO of Mariana strategies. And the topic today is, what can companies do to become more inclusive, equitable and diverse, is our topic for today. So what I wanted to do Bethany was ask you a couple questions before we get to Audrey. She talked about this core idea of what makes you want to show up on Monday morning, referencing the fact that diversity, equity and inclusion is important for people. And when you think about that, that Sunday evening that you're having where you've got to go into work the next day, and how somebody feels about that is a good litmus test for dei in some ways, I'm just curious what you make of that. I

Bethany Ayers 7:15

agree. I think I've mentioned this before, where people of huge amount of work, beyond how much you earn is the people that you work with and enjoying being around people. And part of being able to enjoy being around people is feeling like you belong, that you're included, and that you're being treated the same as everybody else, and because we're such pack animals, the second we feel excluded, everything in us just collapses, and it makes it really difficult to go into work when you don't feel as though you belong. The

Brandon 7:49

second thing that she had spoken about was this idea of, do your norms in your organization align to your values as kind of the centerpiece by which you would create policies and different ways of expressing DNI that conform to your values as an organization. And it got me to thinking a little bit, which is, I think some companies with founders, what's happening is that they're expressing some level of intellectual dishonesty because they say the right thing, they express it, at least externally, in a certain way. You join that organization, and it feels different, and it doesn't feel like those things actually are real, to be honest. So that's one

Bethany Ayers 8:27

of the things that people complain about around values all the time, is that it's being paid lip service rather than making a difference. And then if you add to that sustainability or Dei, that those can be even more difficult, let alone there's some kind of version of every person matters in almost every value. And I don't think it's purposely duplicitous. I don't think people are going in there, going right, I am a dishonest, lazy, have no intellectual curiosity, and so what I'm going to do is trick people by having these values. I think people genuinely believe in the values, and there's a reason why, and believe in the behaviors, and believe that people are equal and every person matters, but nobody's as self as aware as we think we are. And so with a lack of self awareness, not noticing how your behaviors do not match up with your values and also with the culture that we've grown up in. And everybody grows up in a culture, and everybody else's culture seems totally crazy to us compared to our own. You don't realize that you go to another culture, that what you have isn't set in stone reality, that there's all of these cultural biases that we've grown up with and been raised with that we don't question, and we can act in ways that don't show that every person matters. Yeah. Couple examples. One is, obviously, everybody knows I'm a bit of a feminist, and I care about how women are treated. And there's a lot of time that you will notice cultural mores that sneak into the office, like who gets all of the coffees, who sorts out the waters, who tends to have the lower paying jobs, who makes sure everybody is okay, who's organizing all of the parties, and nine times out of 10, it's a woman, one time out of 10, it's a gay man, and you don't see the rest of it, and we don't see that behavior, because in our culture, that's just standard, and you almost have to like notice it and go against it. For anybody who hasn't lived in another country, there's an astonishing number of things that you'll have never occurred to you are different. Could be different anywhere else. When

I lived in Japan, like that was a daily occurrence just seeing random stuff that made no sense to me or like, what is going on here? But, and I

love that, because if you've not gone to different countries or lived in different countries, you don't realize how many of your assumptions are just your assumptions, and it's not real. I mean, it's just as real as anybody else's. Like cultures can come up with all kinds of ways to solve problems and organize themselves. And the other one that is probably a bit political, but whatever that I hadn't realized growing up in America, the Constitution is like nearly a holy document. It is perfect. You go and look at it. We're taught about it, so the Declaration of Independence, but particularly the Constitution and the first 10 amendments are just set in stone. And holy is as close as I can think of it. And growing up, don't think about it. It's like, yes, the founding fathers and yes this and yeah, and it was only coming here and looking at it in retrospect. And here there's not even a constitution, and it's all just done on common law.

It's a weird artifact of the US, for sure, that I can't recognize at all. It seems weird to me, because as a Canadian, Canada is based on the same framework as the UK.

I had lived in Germany for a year. I had lived in Italy for a year. I studied political science, and I think I'm quite a critical thinker, and it was only moving here and seeing it for a few years that I could understand something that I had been taught like that's how embedded it was in me that I didn't even know it was something to question. Yeah,

no, that's interesting. So I wanted to throw something at you that I've experienced, and I'm just curious what your opinion is. We had a customer, and the customer was Fox News. And when one of those movements had happened a couple years back, we had our employees, or at least a cohort of our employees, telling us to fire that customer. And I remember having this conversation with the leadership team, and I'm like, Look, we're in the business to be a business. We're not here to make political statements. And we have a very diverse employee base, some of which I'm assuming, have Republican leanings, and we as an organization want to be inclusive. I don't necessarily agree with Fox News's editorial this that the other but the wider organization may, and we want to be inclusive of all opinions, not be in a position where, where we're adjudicating our customer base in terms of these being people fit for purpose based on what they're saying, versus this other group that's saying something different. Something different, presumably, and that's kind of the message that we went out with to the company, which is, we understand that some people are concerned about this, but here's our position, and we got blowback for it. I'm just curious what you think, how should we have handled that? Because this is all to me in my head, around inclusivity as concept. It's

a really tough one. And you were specifically selling to publishers. And so you have one area, we had, there's lots of companies doing lots of questionable things. We had Monsanto as a customer at one point. And, you know, it's like, and they're all the GM stuff and treating things very poorly. PepsiCo is a customer. But, you know, PepsiCo is doing a huge amount of obesity. And so it's like, where do you draw the line, and who are the ones that you do and don't work with? Because for major companies, pretty much all of them, you can find a reason why they're repugnant in one way or another. I think we have somebody who started bringing in German companies that had Nazi involvement in World War Two, and it's like, okay, you know? And so suddenly it's like, we could just have no customer base, so you think you need to first figure out, what are your 400% sure, no gos and agree those and then be a bit lighter with the others. So that's one way. There are so many companies doing things that are not great, but then yours is a bit different, because it was always publishers. You're all going to have to be publishers, and where is your but you must have had to decide where your line was on types of publishers, or were you not.

We didn't really think that way, like, you know, we had customers like the Guardian, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times. Etc, etc. But equally, we also had algae zero. We also had, I can't remember their name. They were basically a mouthpiece for the communist government in China. They're all broadcasters, they're all print publishers and so on. Didn't have a policy in terms of somehow boxing, kind of like, Who would we have as a customer and who we wouldn't, I suppose. But to your point, maybe we should have, maybe there should have been some kind of framework to get rid of the outliers, if that makes sense. So like we have values, we apply them. Here's our 9010 framework of what outliers or criteria by which we would actually not have a customer

or very openly saying We believe in freedom of the press over everything else. And even if these are not actually free presses, everybody should hear everything like I think bringing it back to some sort of first principle would be helpful. But I think it's around working through what is it, and then standing by it. If you had said, we're not going to work with the Chinese mouthpiece, but we are going to work with Fox, you could have some arguments. You know of there's pretty evil things both ways. But if you're going to say we're going to work with the Chinese mouthpiece and we're also going to work with Fox like, it's a bit more palatable, you're saying everybody is going to take our services and standing for some reason. But then I would argue like, fine, yes, we don't want to talk to illegal people, but I don't know really why pornographers would need to have transcriptions, but if they did,

seems like a use case is not particularly a plan.

But you know, if they did, then I guess I would argue like, why no pornography but yes to Fox News? I would be on that side where we look at it through a principal lens, rather than a inclusivity lens.

Last question I wanted to ask you was, How can organizations create policies that cater to the needs of transgender and non binary employees,

based on what Audrey has said, in general, would be talk to the employee and find out how to support them. So

there was three things now in retrospect that I have now have thought about a little bit. The first one is some practical considerations, which is the gender neutral bathrooms would be one another practical element would be the health benefits being more inclusive of transgender and non binary as well. I think these are real things that help, help in very practical, real ways, for for individuals. The other one, which Audrey did mention, which is the employee resource groups. And obviously, if you're transgender an organization, there may not be a tremendous amount of other transgender individuals as an example. So like our previous episode talking about communities, this may be a matter of there may be a resource group related to LGBTQ as an example, but equally, there may be a stipend given to individuals whereby they can go to outside communities and get peer level support. In that case as well, the last little bit was more just around which I think was quite interesting to me, was more around transition guidelines, ie, in the sense that somebody within the organization currently is evaluating and considering their gender options and may want to pursue something, and you actually having guidelines to support that individual down that journey within the company itself, feels like, almost like, the next level of support that I think might be useful consideration.

And that actually was the one I was about to say, is like, Ooh, I can contribute to this. Because when we went through something at peak, I can't remember what it was, or like a certification, and they audited all of our stuff, one of their recommendations was to create a transition policy for exactly that reason is that you don't know who may be embarking on that journey and might need that support. It's very similar to why you have a maternity leave policy that is published and available. So to my point, with the Jennifer Geary conversation around privacy, you should be able to self serve on areas where you want to remain private until you understand what's going on. Yeah,

exactly. Okay. So with that, why don't we go on a quick break, and when we come back, we'll have our conversation with Audrey rufey And

And we're back. Our focus is not on complaining about things, but actually on what can we do to make a difference? What policies and changes can we as leaders do so that the next generation has more than one woman in the boardroom and maybe a couple people of color.

So it is about getting those policies right, making sure that you're going to walk the walk that really brilliant, that the brilliant jerk doesn't get a pass, that it's built into things like performance reviews and how we measure the quality of the people that we want to keep and promote. How do we bring people in? And all of those things,

the policy is the core of getting something right to begin with. And then the second part I'm very curious about, which is the liftoff of the policy itself. What do you think are really the top three activators of that policy to really make a difference in a company? Because, as you well, are well aware and skill up so we don't have a lot of time to do all sorts of things. What will actually make an impact in the shortest timeframe is always the question of the operator's head. So what are those three things, those three activators of that policy?

The first thing is, leadership. None of this is going to happen unless the person or people at the very top have their full throated buy in and everyone knows it. The second thing is, and this is really interesting and true of dei plus work, is the investment in middle managers and making sure that they are equipped to connect on all of these points, because they're the ones doing the performance reviews, they're the ones hearing about or observing issues of harassment, so really investing in their skills to be able to have them walk the walk. And then the third thing, I think, is accountability at every level, is making sure that every individual within an organization is aware of these policies, is able to own their responsibility for living up to them. Those are the three things when

you say it, it sounds so easy, and then the reality is so hard, the training and the clarity. Because when I started in my career, 20 odd years ago, inappropriate behavior was really easy to identify and explain. Like one of my first bosses used to like to pick me up physically, because he wasn't a very big man, and I'm not a very big woman, and so the idea that he could physically pick somebody up was great fun. And he would just like come behind me and suddenly pick me up, and I wouldn't know what was coming. And I know this is inappropriate behavior, and I knew it was inappropriate behavior. 25 years ago, I did go to the HR team, and then my boss called me in and yelled at me for going to HR, and I shouldn't have done that, and I should have spoken directly to him, even though he was 45 and I was 23 but now when I'm speaking, and I'm doing this mostly as a white woman, so it's a very particular lens, and I know that I'm being very much biased towards my own experience has been that it's way more subtle now, and have people who are feeling like they're not included, that maybe a lot of sport is being spoken about, that maybe conversations stop when they enter the room. But is that a policy infringement? How do you deal with the subtlety? Because women are still not staying

so I think we want to divide the issues that are about inclusion and belonging versus conduct that is not fit for business. Touching people without their consent is inappropriate conduct. So I think the things that we see on that front is the import of fostering conversations where we talk about what makes you want to show up on Monday morning, that Sunday night feeling, is it, this is a place I want to be or not. And there's so much that people in that coo capacity can do to foster a culture where people feel respected, where they feel valued for the work that they're doing, trusted to execute on those roles and seek to be themselves in that workplace. And that does take a few different elements, but it's important and somewhat different from the strict implementation

of policies. So let's go into the how of that a little bit. So the how you

want to be able to ask questions and find out what your people think. So, before being prescriptive about actions, the first thing that we would suggest is find out from people. You're doing surveys, right? Your employee engagement surveys, maybe you're doing a dei survey. Ask people what's happening that makes you feel valued or trusted. Do you feel you can be yourself at work? Do you feel respected? And get that data and find out where your pain points are, if your organization's big enough, you can get that information broken down along demographic lines and be able to do targeted support, some things that once you have that information are probably relevant to you are going to be. Do you have employee resource groups? Do you have places where people feel at home in the workplace and then ensuring that your norms align with your values? So you might have a norm where we want the highest returns no matter. It. I picture the Alec Baldwin character in Glen Carey, Glen Ross, where it's like, if it's all about the results, then that's your culture, and you're clear about it. But if that's not the culture that you want, then really actively engaging people to determine what the norms should be in that workplace and consistently building toward it. This is tending to the workplace in a crucial way when it comes to retention and growing great people.

So what are the skills that the line manager should have to be effective in this capacity? Like, what are we really talking about? We

are talking about emotional intelligence. For one, the ability to empathize with people who have different lived experiences than your own, being able to put yourself in the shoes of someone else. Another crucial skill is conflict management. That's not surprising, but comes to the fore much more often than I think it used to. Another is building the psychological safety of teams. So if psychological safety is this concept that people feel safe to speak up without fear of embarrassment or being shot down. This contributes to the effectiveness of teams, and when you're in the position to either create that or destroy that as a middle manager, you definitely want to be creating it and fostering that on your teams.

I just going to go back to hard questions that I struggle with, and maybe this is also, even though I just said we're going to be positive and we're going to talk about all the good things, I feel as though there are certain elements that I'm just frustrated by, like reflecting on my career, I've been in tech for 25 years. When I started, it seemed like the balance of men and women were about 5050, at my level of seniority. And over time, the women disappeared. And then I'm very often the only woman, or maybe one of two or three in a room, and I don't see after 25 years, a massive difference, like there seems to hit a certain point and the women disappear. And granted, I'm looking very much in a tech world, I feel as though so much of dei is spent on the bringing people in, and then we don't really focus on retaining people. And that is a combination of both equity and belonging and inclusion. And so I think some of it is policy, but some of it is just society and expectations of women, also from some experiences and numbers that have run over the past, I think straight white men tend to get the benefit of the doubt more often, which is different than somebody being discriminated against. I mean, it's not, but it feels slightly like a slight subtlety, and all of those elements compound, where even if you bring people into the top of the funnel, they all fall out, and at the end, we end up with straight white men, and now sometimes some gay white men. How long is it going to take, and what do we do to keep that funnel nice and wise throughout the process, easy answers, right?

So efforts around retention really want to focus on a few things. One is unsurprising, is sponsorship and mentorship, right? We're familiar with mentorship, but I don't know if every listener is familiar with sponsorship, but the idea that you're not just mentoring someone toward greater success in their position or their field, but when you have skin in the game, to say, I think Beth is the person who should have this role, and I vouch for her and she should get to do it, it's giving people stretch assignments and thinking about who gets them and why, to make sure that you're seeing growth and capacity there another aspect of this is really taking that time to identify what your biases are and act to subvert them. Over and over again. The research shows that giving people unconscious bias training is ineffective and harmful. Being aware of your biases does nothing to change them at all. If you stop there, nothing changes. But when you identify the places where biases come up in the workplace and you act to subvert them, that's a crucial thing that every manager has to do. Because what you're talking about is that subtlety are those day to day experiences that compound into well, I might as well leave well, I might as well take that lower paying less time job somewhere else, because we're not creating the capacity to keep people who are not well represented. Another element of that is ensuring that, if you want people to stay, make it possible for them to stay. We're talking about maybe it's childcare subsidies, maybe it's on site childcare. It's factoring in how you get to that workplace and whether that workplace is virtual or not. The reality is that we are whole people, not just the people who show up at work from 9am to 5pm but if you can tend to those needs react to that, it makes a big difference to whether people stay over time.

I was reading a study a couple weeks back, and it was saying that the child rearing years when they happen, that is the single reason why the funnel collapses at that point, because women leave for being pregnant, having birth, and then then there's this decision making process that occurs after that in terms of how to proceed with the family, in terms of how to finance the family who's going back to work when they're going back to work. I'm just

going to put in another piece of evidence that in the UK, I think it's 25,000 women a year are made redundant on maternity leave, and every one of those are individually, make sense yet or the highest level of people to be made redundant. And so it's not always the woman's choice as to whether or not she's going back to that job. And I think that's where I'm talking about the bias, the individual stories versus the numbers that you look at, and where that bias comes in from. So

there's two sides of the coin, which is the personal decision making process and the part of the family, given the circumstances that we have, maternity, paternity policies, government policies. And then you're right, there's the flip side of the equation, which is there's a bias that occurs whereby women are punished, and you can see it on the aggregate stats as to what you're saying. Bearing that in mind, what do we do with that? Because that's two headed dragon is kind of the centerpiece of this.

The thing that an organization can do is think about whether you want to grow people and keep them over time or not. In different places, there are going to be different requirements for keeping jobs open after leave. In the United States, there will be requirements for keeping a position open. But I can tell you from personal experience, after I gave birth to my first child, and my husband took the full leave from his law firm. He was laid off the week he got back, and while, on the surface, it had nothing to do with having taken the full parental leave, that that impact is absolutely real for anyone who takes it, and it's absolutely baked into the way we see family planning and careers. So unless that changes, and if anyone is in a position to implement policies and see how they're either family friendly or not, it should be something that makes you an attractive place to work by really making that space for what the trend is which it will be two working parent families, dei plus work is not a goal in itself, but a value. It's kind of like you're moving in a certain direction. You're headed west, but West is not a destination. You keep having to ensure that you're doing more to reach goals around dei plus. And the question I ask my clients is, when they're getting that pressure to perform and achieve and put out statements and there's media attention, is it falling off the agenda, or are you consistently tracking what you're doing, being public within your company about what you're doing external, is another question, then measuring it and continuing to move forward.

And the measuring is the incredibly important part. And then this is also the point of not just measuring how many people are coming in, but how well you retain what promotions are like, what pay gap is like, and exits. And it's that entire life cycle that needs to be measured and then looked at critically for the individual stories might all make sense, but there is something structural in play and needing to look at that, and then I guess, from where we started this conversation, build in the policies or the behaviors that address those issues

100% if you're not measuring it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't exist to be able to track that information and act on it tells you exactly what the priorities are, right? We're tracking our P and L's closely, right? This is not different, and to be able to have this information will tell you, are you achieving these goals, or is it lip service?

How do I subvert my own misogyny that I notice on a fairly regular basis?

Well, let's talk about what that process looked like for you, right? You had to become aware that this bias existed. Maybe it's punishing women who speak up. I'll

tell you my story, and it's not actually in the workplace. It was in my writing class, and my writing class happens to just be all. Women. And one time we had a man show up for some reason, and all of a sudden I noticed him, and I was like, oh, a man is here. He must be really good. I wonder what he's going to think about what I wrote. I hope that I wrote is good enough. And, wow, I can't wait to hear he wrote, because he's just going to be so good. And all of these things are going through my head. And I was like, but I'm still completely aware of it. Then somebody read, and his comments weren't very interesting, and I read, and he said something stupid, and I was like, and then he read, and he was kind of like, middle of the class, maybe lower end of the class. And it was only at that point that I realized I had held him on this massive pedestal, because I've never met him before, but he's a man. And then I was just like, What is going on with me? And then start to notice it that like I do just bestow upon men a sense of expertise or assumed expertise before they ever open their mouths. And I do not do the same with women. So that's my own misogyny that you can help unpack.

So that's an excellent story, because in it, you've identified that you have a bias, because you've learned over years to have certain beliefs about who's more qualified, who's more capable, whose approval do you need? And you could think about it and then say, Ooh, is that helpful to me? Is that helpful to my two children, who I'm raising to be good men, right? Why would I have this from there saying to yourself, Okay, I see how this comes up. What can I do to not put that into play, and what should I do instead? You can say, to give a more measured critical, fair response to a situation. But leaders need to do that all the time. Right? What's actually going to be helpful

when we come to the inclusivity point? Who's inclusivity? Because there seems to be often it feels like it's zero sum. I led a lot of sales teams in my life, and there's a lot of golf, and there's a lot of talk about football, and then I hire women into these areas, and they don't go golfing, and a lot of stuff happens on the golf course, and then gets referred to meetings start with talking about the game, and then if I try and have the men do less of that, then they're like, Well, I can't bring my full self to work, because golf and football mean a lot to me. And then the women are like, well, I don't want to have to pretend to like golf and football. How do you create an inclusive environment there? And what is and isn't appropriate and who has to not get to talk about the things they care about?

I hope everyone has the opportunity to talk about what matters to them. But to your question, the answer is, inclusion is for everyone, and not for some people, not at the expense of some people, but when we're valuing each person on a team. We want to see everyone experience that feeling of belonging in a group. So what I would recommend on that front is asking people, and we do an exercise where we have folks come together on a team. We're asking them, What makes you feel respected at work. What are the things that people do, from the verbal to the nonverbal, visual, making on contact, saying hello, whatever it is, getting that long list of what matters to people and what's happening, and then the flip side of it, what's happening that's making you feel disrespected, what's making you feel cut out and being able to observe what's on those lists and identify the things that we need to do more of to build that sense of belonging on a team. And this happens team by team, and then identifying what's happening that we need to stop doing or change, because it creates harm when we're invested in how other people feel in a group on a team, it has a tremendous impact on whether or not people experience inclusion. So getting people to feel invested and caring about their colleagues really makes a huge difference there, too. And

so then it comes down to empathy, or explaining why people might not feel included when it's all about the golf that happened on Saturday that they weren't invited to.

It really is. I mean, this is about empathy. If your only opportunity for inclusion is golf outings scheduled at a time that doesn't work for someone, or where their opportunity to participate fully is in a reality that that's going to impact inclusion. But also, I would add, you're going beyond inclusion when you're looking at, does this impact my ability to fully achieve at work? What are the external events happening that impact my ability to move up in a group? People who manage on those teams should be aware of these elements and acting on them. And

so it's not inappropriate to act on the golf and football chat, or is it more about like, the first step is to get everybody to talk about what they feel good and not good about, and then, like, share it, and then everybody gets to understand each other. And then naturally, behaviors will change.

Well, not necessarily, but when we're in a position to say, All right, we're seeing that this works for some people, but it doesn't work for most people. What should we do getting some buy in? Say, Okay, I can see how this would be something that we want to address as a team, and then managers need to take action to create that change.

The other question is, back to my question around zero sum, or perception that it is zero sum. I think that this, in my experience, has been the number one reason why things don't change is because it's a feeling that if I change, I'm going to lose. Is there a way to have people be less afraid of change. And by people, I mean people in the dominant culture be less afraid of change.

I think about it like a bell curve, right? Because I don't want to think about changing each individual person's perception. And I think that the Coos listening to this are not going to be in a position to change each individual person's perception, but there are people who are fully on board. They are ready to do this work. It's because it's the right thing to do, because this is what the future looks like. We are not going to become a less inclusive workplace in the future being able to pursue this growth and change is hugely important, and they know it. They're the people in the middle who are not sure what they think about it. They hear one way in the news, and then when, for instance, dei plus is explained to them, they're like, Oh, this is a great idea. Recent Washington Post Ipsos poll found that nearly two thirds of Americans approve of dei actions when they're explained to them as being things that give folks greater opportunities in the workplace, for folks who are underrepresented in positions of power, two thirds of Americans say that's great. That's right in the middle, right? And then there are going to be some people who do have that fear and are not going to change. And I think that our focus needs to be on the greatest number of people who can be invested in that change for the future. And I think some powerful ways that we do that is through storytelling. It's hard for people to perhaps understand what someone else's experience is like, or give it value without hearing from them personally or personal experience is extremely powerful to make that change in the workplace. So that's one way that I would suggest it.

So my final, almost final, question, is not necessarily a list of resources now, because we can include resources in the speaker notes, but for people who are interested in doing the work themselves and bringing the work to work, do you have a couple resources or a couple first steps that you would recommend? Yes,

I think the first steps I would recommend are assessing the landscape in your workplace, finding out what people are experiencing, doing the kinds of surveys that you're already doing to ensure that you have that data, and from there, taking action to identify goals that you want in the workplace around dei plus, do you have the policies in place that you want to have to implement dei actions? What are you doing in the talent procurement and management, from what kind of skills building are you doing for your people around these topics like emotional intelligence and psychological safety? Are you building the norms in the workplace that make people feel valued, trusted, able to be their authentic selves? Those are some excellent places to start, and where I would suggest you go to find that information or the things to read. We are huge fans of Harvard Business Review and the Stanford Social Innovation Review, places for great data, research based findings around what makes workplaces more equitable and inclusive and diverse in the long run. And those are the things that you can find, not just what works, but also what doesn't work, what not to do. Those are really great places to find excellent information.

Okay, so that means I have to ask you, what's the number one thing not to do?

The number one thing not to do is to say you're going to take action and do nothing, and a very close second is training with no follow through. This is either a part of how you do business or it's window dressing. And

so training with no follow through is discrimination training or harassment training, but then not implementing policies and not holding people to account. Would that be what you mean?

Yeah. That is 100% what I mean really specifically, you know, we see this all the time in the United States with harassment prevention training, which is created as a response to a series of Supreme Court cases that found that a defense to a harassment claim could be that an organization provided training. It is as close to an actual fig leaf as anything, and it does absolutely nothing to change behaviors, and in fact, can make it worse. So your better bet is to have policies that you enforce around harassment prevention and inclusion in the workplace.

And now our final question Audrey is, if our listeners can only take one thing away from today's conversation, what

is it? Practice empathy every day.

So much easier said than done. I have to say that for anybody else out there who struggles with empathy or has struggled with it in the past, and I am definitely putting my hand up, there is I listened to. It was a Brene Brown podcast. When she was still doing the podcast, was it dare to lead, and she had an episode with Angela Duckworth, who's the author of grit. And in that episode, Angela was talking about how she just didn't have any patience. And she and also she's the only person to be interviewed on the podcast who interrupted the whole time, and just like, as Brene Brown starts talking, she's like, Yeah, yeah. And she would interrupt and be like, you could see, like, she's just so much energy. And she said that she could not develop empathy until she learned to slow down and develop patience. And that just hit me, and I thought, Oh, my God, that's me, and I have practiced slowing down so much, and I'm still not going to claim that I'm the most empathetic person, but I am way, way more than I used to be, because I can just take a second to hear what somebody else has to say and just be there with them.

What's the value of that to you? What's that given you true

connection with people in a way that I didn't have before? I feel as though I have created or have developed more true friendships since listening to that podcast than probably most of my life before then.

Well, you know, all of this is, you know, you can lead a horse to water. The most exciting part of my work is that light bulb moment when somebody says, I see this differently than I ever did before, and I can't unsee now.

That is life, isn't it? All of those moments where you can't unsee. Yeah.