Michelle welcomes Jennifer Brown, a prominent figure in the DEI and leadership space, to explore the evolving landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. They talk about the concept of inclusive leadership, highlighting actionable ways leaders can foster environments where everyone feels safe, valued, and able to contribute fully. Jennifer shares insights from her extensive career—including her proprietary inclusive leadership model and the nuanced difficulties leaders face transitioning from traditional command-and-control styles to more inclusive approaches.

They also talk about the recent challenges and retrenchments affecting DEI initiatives, especially amidst political and social changes. Jennifer talks about the importance of adapting DEI strategies, even in a time of regulatory and societal pushback, and discusses her latest book, "The Shape of Change." They also offer practical guidance for leaders grappling with uncertainty, the increasing complexity introduced by rapid advancements in AI, and a call to embrace innovation, humility, and introspection in leading diverse organizations forward.

To learn more about Jennifer and order her book, visit: https://jenniferbrownspeaks.com/

Michelle I'm Michelle Pfefferman, founder and CEO of EquityAtWork and this is your DEI minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization, all in 15 minutes or less. Before we get started, I'm really excited to let you know that my new book Do DEI Write is now available. This is your guide to the Equity at Work Maturity Model which shows leaders how to make DEI part of every day and drive great results. You can get your copy through the link in the show notes or wherever books are sold. Hi everyone. I'm thrilled to have a wonderful guest with us today and have you hear all of her wisdom that she has to share. Her name is Jennifer Brown.

Jennifer has been working the DEI space and leadership space for over 20 years and is a best selling author, an award winning speaker, a coach, has been a consultant, moved in all different spaces around DEI and inclusive leadership and and really is viewed as one of today's most trusted voices on inclusive leadership in the workplace. So really thrilled to have her join us today and share some great insights. She's written a number of books, including her best selling book how to Be an Inclusive Leader and has another book coming up soon called the Shape of Change which I'm going to have her talk about with all of us in just a few minutes. So Jennifer, thanks so much for being here with us. We really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. You're someone that I've followed for years. I feel like it's such a privilege and honor to have you here sharing your insight and wisdom. So thank you so much. I thought it'd be great to start with asking you a little bit about inclusive leadership. I know you've developed a proprietary model that is in your book. Inclusive leadership I think is a concept that's been talked about for a number of years among leaders. That is one of those things to a lot of people sounds really great, but they don't really know what it means or like how to really go do it day to day or it may feel like if I'm too inclusive, am I not in charge? You know, if they're in kind of a traditional hierarchy, I get a lot of that from some of my more operational leaders who are very hierarchical.

They're kind of like how do I do that if I'm supposed to be Kind of command and control. So talk a little bit about some of your insights related to inclusive leadership. What. What is it really? What are some of the key nuggets that make it work for people?

Yeah, those are. I mean, you bring up a lot of the pushback or the questions that I've gotten to, And, you know, they're fair questions, because in a way, what we're talking about is going a little slow. To go fast, right? To slow down enough so that you're really observing and paying attention and curious and invested in learning more about what derails performance. And it's. And if you believe in inclusion as a principle and that the workplace hasn't really been built to be a comfortable place for people, for many people to contribute, I mean, you sort of have to agree that that's true. Like, I. You know, as an LGBTQ person, I've probably struggled with authenticity in the workplace. I had to put a lot of energy towards that.

As a female, I've had to put a lot of energy towards it, and that's taken away from my performance and my focus and my. My relationships with colleagues, the trust that I feel. So these things are very, very important for humans to be able to be creative. Like, we have to feel safe to be creative. So the sense of belonging, which is safety, in a nutshell, is something that our colleagues at any level can help create and contribute to, or we can ignore and say, I'm just gonna push people as hard as I can, and it doesn't really matter who they are, what they're feeling, how they're experiencing this culture, and I'll still get the same output. And if you believe that, then you've kind of missed the memo. Probably not someone that a lot of people want to work for with. So it's seeing the differences.

It's wanting to see the differences. It's getting comfortable being uncomfortable talking about those differences. It is leaning into each person if necessary. And I know that there's a lot of senior leaders listening to this, and I know this is hard because you're leading at scale, but, you know, each human is going through all kinds of things, and those things can have a material impact on the ROI of the success of the company, ROI of teams, the quality of products, the customer insights, you know, all of that brilliance that you don't want to derail at all. You want to unleash. What I think about it as is the discretionary effort that someone can give when they feel safe, heard, valued, welcomed, like, that's what you want to get. That's like the magic of business. So if you've just got everybody giving the minimum because they're checked out, they don't trust.

They don't feel trusted. You are. You are certainly limping along.

Yeah, I. I love that term, sort of around it being discretionary, because I think a lot of people don't realize. They sort of assume, you know, especially if you're in that kind of push mentality. If I push people hard, that makes them very productive, when in reality, they can be going through the mechanics of their job, but they're not actually that productive because they're not engaged, they're not bought into it, they don't feel safe, like you mentioned. And I. I think that's where a lot of, you know, some leaders can get lost, especially if they were kind of raised to be like that in organizations. They haven't seen anything different. But we've certainly seen with our clients and in other research, you know, if you can, like you said, sort of create that space, create psychological safety, make sure people belong, you actually do get more productivity on the other side.

And it can feel like, I think for people who didn't grow up in the workplace that way, they may not. That may not feel intuitive, but if you go back to some of what you're saying around, like, as a. How I want to show up at work, I want to be relaxed. I want to feel like I can be myself. You know, I feel like I can be. I'm. I feel that I trust the organization to do right by me. You can then put all of your energy into being great at your job, whereas otherwise you're very guarded.

And so you hold back or. It's really draining just knowing that I have to go into work and, like, put on this mask and pretend I'm not somebody different than I thought, than I really am. Have you found that people have struggled with making that change? Or, like, what are some of the things that can get in the way of. Of being able to make that switch? Do they kind of try for a little while and then fall back in an old habit or, you know, like, it's sort of. Some of these things are kind of like, you know, when the doctor tells you, oh, she lose 10 pounds. Like, okay, I can go lose 10 pounds. But, like, you know, we kind of do it for a little while, and I'm like, oh, this is so hard. I just.

It's easier to fall back on old habits. What have you found with something like this?

Yeah, it is like that. It's a lot like I think of, you know, working out in the gym and anything that requires anything that travels from. I hate that. I don't understand it. It makes me feel weird and I'm awkward and oh my goodness, I'm seeing the results from this new habit, you know, and the journey between those two things is full of potholes and detours and all kinds of things. So it really requires dedication. I see it like hygiene for leadership. A development of a lens that you carry with you.

And it takes practice and continual experimentation, I think too. And also humility to say, like, this is not going to be comfortable and I'm not going to have confidence in it for a while.

Yeah.

And by the way, it's not a destination of competence. It's not like you like, finally check a box. It is literally like how you work the steps every day and gain a little insight, cross a threshold that you've never crossed before, maybe make a mistake or a misjudgment that you need to go clean up and rebuild trust, you know, so all the. In the course of a day, it should be. There should be experiences like this where you're getting. You're on the edge of your own competence and you're exercising yourself at that level. Yeah. And I would say hygiene is scheduling this kind of thing in whether it's even like going to read a research report about a disparity at work that you didn't even know existed.

I mean, you would be surprised how many people don't. Don't know what I mean when I say there's a gender pay gap. Like they might say, what do you mean? What is that? That can't be true. Not in my org, you know?

Right.

There's just so much information out there. You. You can't use it as an excuse anymore not to know. It's everywhere. And now we have AI so literally.

Right.

All of, all of our books and all of our teachings and the whole field has like, poured into this. There's a lot of good data. But. But the emotional and personal journey that leaders go on is the human journey. Evolution is uncomfortable. I mean, you're being stretched. You're stretching yourself. You're jumping off the deep end.

You are in. You're putting yourself intentionally in new frontier conversations. And you don't know where they're going to go and you don't know how it's going to go. And that's. But that is good leadership. I mean, if you're not doing that on multiple levels, shouldn't Be in a leadership role. So, you know, the inclusive leader continuum I have in the book, it measures you on unaware, aware, active and advocate. There's like four stages and I always say, any given day you're.

You're exercising this muscle and then you're going realizing, ooh, I need to go back and learn more about that, or, oh, wow, I'm not mentoring anybody that doesn't look like me or identify like I do. So we're constantly like forward and back. It's okay. This is not a linear journey and not a lot is linear in this world anymore anyway.

I don't know if anything's linear anymore.

No, it's not a lot less and less.

Right.

So we got to get comfortable with this, which is, I think, a good lesson for life in general.

Yeah, that's true. Yes, that is definitely true. In terms of dei, obviously, we've all been through a lot of change in the last year, year and a half. And I love, you know, talking with. You've got a very broad experience in the DI space. So you've seen a lot of sort of, you know, you started before DEI was sort of a really well known term. And then all of a sudden everybody like thought they knew what DI was and wanted dei, you know, speakers and trainers and coaches and all this stuff really fast. And now we're, you know, had this executive orders come out and now a lot of people feel like they have to pull so much back and there's a lot of fear.

What's your guidance to people in DEI roles or even leaders who are passionate about this, want to have these programs and practices and be teaching these, you know, behaviors and so forth for their organization. If they're trying to balance, you know, the fear, the politics all, all sort of the different kind of the feelings across the spectrum completely on, you know, how do they. What's your guidance on sort of how to make sense of all that and what to do?

Yeah, it's a lot of adjustment because we had this like I'd say we had. Well, I've been in it almost 25 years, so I've seen this arc that's been pretty continuously upwards and I was lucky enough to kind of start in the. Not even in the beginning. I mean, I was not in the beginning, but I jumped in the point where it was building and then it kind of got into a feeding frenzy, I would say in 20, 20 and 21. And then. And then there was the backlash. Right. So overall, we've made a lot of progress.

Right. We've instituted a lot of new think processes, understanding of systems and how they, they, if they are left unattended, they just continue to kind of get worse for people. We're the ones that create good cultures. We do our leadership choices with the way we treat each other, with our values. Right now we're, we're in a time of retrenchment. Yes. And I, I think of it as, look, there's still some companies that aren't retrenching. A lot of my clients are especially like old companies.

This is not tech. This is like really like hundred year old company. They're staying the course. They're just doing it quietly. But good for them. You know, that that shows that they understand the business case, which is still strong and getting stronger all the time for them. But if you're in a company that has kind of wobbled or worse, canceled events or made them efforts and made them, you know, forbidden from happening, I think we have to move into our own sphere of influences for now and make a difference there. You know, we were lucky over the last 25 years that the institutions were climbing with us.

Like our expectations and our power and influence was growing. And so was the company's cooperation in that. And it felt that we kind of had an agreement like that. This factual, this is not fake news. This drives business. And we don't want to leave anything on the table that drives business. Like it just makes no sense, even if you don't agree morally. So their pullback is risk aversion.

That's what it is. It is a moment in time, although it can feel like longer than a moment. Because I think we've been very. Spoiled may not be the word because it's never been easy, but we have been kind of blessed with this arc.

Yeah.

And we only know what that feels like. Like, most of us professionals have been in the workforce 30 years, 35 years. I'm on the upper end, right?

Yeah.

And we've known a climb and we've known an amazing organizational partnership. And as we learned they wanted to learn with us. That has been paused, you know, but it doesn't mean that the desire to learn and be better and the understanding of the facts has changed. So this just means, you know, where do I then apply my change advocacy, where do I make a difference and what is within my control and what's not going to get me fired. But you know, I also love Michelle that we're evolving the conversation. I think this is a real opportunity and a lot of folks don't agree and are just wishing for the old days. But I really believe that this is an opportunity to innovate. It's really, I've been doing this for a long time and some of our, some of our methods and approaches haven't changed in a really long time.

And I think at the same time the world has done like a total backflip. Yes. And we're dealing with so many new challenges and bigger challenges, more complex. I mean we're in a very, not just a non linear world, but a really incomprehensible world. Like we're like nothing makes sense and whatever I levers I used to pull don't work anymore. And.

Right.

We're in many ways in the dark. We're in this liminal space and the new book talks about that a lot. So what do we do in the liminal space? What do we do when the doors close behind us but no door has opened in front of us yet, you know, and what do we do now? And I think the purpose of this lull is to really be introspective, to really take stock of. Okay, so what did we rely on organizations for? What if they are fair weather friends, you know, when the going gets tough and they pull back next time? What will we build that that helps make this more sustainable? Like that's a great question to sit with and for leaders, I think it's time to say, okay, that was a wild 20 years. If I have a manager, executive, I've been in the workforce a long time. I learned some things, I struggled, I resisted, maybe I overcame, maybe I got religion and you know, became very excited. And so I think it's time to think about like, who will I be in this next iteration that is truly like tightly responsive to what is happening for people in my organization? How will I know that? How will I address it? How will I provide what it. Whether it's reassurance, comfort, support, strategies.

We can't make false promises that everything is going to be easy. It is a, it's about to get really hairy. I think it's, it is, it's just with years of AI and workforce changes. So the humans that we are around and we ourselves are going to need, need different things right now. And I, I think we've all got centered around like what is that? It's bigger. It's bigger than dei, but it is thematically similar. But it's bigger. It's more macro and it's also more micro.

It's more like safety, the ability to provide for your family, financial Security health and mental health. So we're at this sort of baseline, like, are my basic needs worried that those are going away too? And that's a whole. To me, that's a whole different kind of existential question to be asking about, like, what we're building, what kind of cultures we want, how are the humans doing in our organization, my leading from that place. And that's the recalibration that I think we should be doing.

I think a lot of people feel a fair amount of despair. They feel angry, they're frustrated, sad, confused. I just think there's just a lot of negative emotions going around. But I, I really like your guidance of sort of step back and say it doesn't mean that everything is going away forever. And sometimes you do have to kind of sit in the discomfort for a while. And I think we have a natural tendency to want to, like, rush and fix things, especially those of us who are change agents. We love to rush the complicated, messy stuff and try to fix it. And.

But there is something that can come from kind of sitting in the muck, you know, and just saying, I'm going to reflect on this and be introspective also sort of do really good listening, create a lot of space, and then figure out what can I still do. And I, and I love the idea of, of sort of, you know, seizing this time as like a time to be innovative because it is a new challenge. And. But we know that people still, businesses that have done the work well, they see the business benefit. The people who've gotten to experience it have gotten a huge boost from it. So, like, there's a lot of positive there that we can still channel. I think it's a matter of figuring out how, like, what does that look like next and, and how can we keep things moving in the middle of all of this chaos that we're living in. And in the U.S.

you know, under the current administration, that's very anti all of this. You know, you can't just sit and wait two and a half, three more years till the next person comes. We also don't know what that person will bring philosophy they'll bring in. Hopefully we go back to something that's more what we came from. But we don't know. We still have to sort of figure all that out. So I'd love, you know, your guidance to kind of, you know, like, sit in it, look at it as an opportunity for innovation. And I know that's one of the themes of your new book.

So tell us a little bit More about embracing liminal space and kind of this. And, and also in the AI era, it's sort of how do we weave in, you know, a lot of the soft skills and, and these things that, you know, we're trying to sort of hard code into these AI systems. There's a lot of fear about bias creeping in. There's a lot of fear that we kind of lose the nuance when we rely too much on AI. So just would love to hear what are some of the key things that you're really trying to help leaders understand with your new book.

Yeah, yeah. Before I talk about the book, I wanted to just address you bring up the question of AI rolling out through companies and the investments that have been made, which largely have been deemed failures from a, like a workforce adoption perspective. They're not seeing the return that they expected or whatever. And it's such a test, I think, of inclusivity and proper management of your culture. I love the quote, culture eats strategy for breakfast. So we seemingly have not learned this lesson yet, this thing, and shoved it through the organization. So I do want to say there is a right way and it is a little go slow to go fast. It's thoughtful.

You know, it takes humans into account and loops them in. I mean, speaking of bias, these models have been trained on the data set and not really been steered to the extent that they should have. And the folks at the table doing that didn't look like the world, you know, did not so, and weren't incentivized to debias it either. So we are dealing with, you know, a biased tool, amazing tool for sure, but something that is very dangerous in terms of the way it amplifies. One mistake becomes 100 becomes a thousand, becomes like now the norm. So anyway, the organizations I see that are doing this in a way, I might say inclusively, because they are prioritizing the role, the very important role of judgment of the human in the organization. And this is, to answer your question, the, the. The value, unique value and contribution of us as you contrast it to the machine.

That's right digested. You know, all of the Internet is right is the. Is the subtleties, it's the nuances. It's the complexities of human behavior. It's the ability to spot bias. You know, the ability to see that. The ability to kind of take care of the humans and make a rollout successful, like make it stick, make it make appreciated as a tool versus something that destroys trust between the employee and the employer, which is what's happening. Now, I'm not sure that it's hard to get trust back.

It is really, really hard. And I, I think this whole thing, these rollouts, caused a lot of collateral damage. It's going to be really hard to come back from.

Yeah.

And I'm just amazed that this has not been handled with more care. But in a way, I'm not surprised. The same, same kind of thinking that led to, oh, we'll just get rid of DEI is the same thinking as you see happening with the way rollouts are happening.

Right? Yeah.

So sadly, like swoop.

Just this broad brush.

Yeah, exactly. Broad brush. It's a total one size fits all. You know, we don't have to care about this.

Right.

The humans are somehow just going to respond and know what to do and feel good about it. You know, just all you talk about biases anyway. But the book, the book resulted from things we've been talking about. I think my career and my field has undergone because of this administration. A. I mean, a death of sorts. I mean, it's truly been paused. But what that means economically is that many people are experiencing huge shifts in their income, in their livelihood, in the career they spent 30 years building.

You know, and I am no different. And I've wonderfully and sadly I doubled down on the D and the I. And then the, I mean, over the years they've, you know, the acronym has grown longer, but I, I just fell in love with this work and committed like 150%. So the book is about losing a lot of that, like as a. As a way, as a means to do my change, leadership and as a business owner, how it's felt and what ended up happening was my. I, I shared my thoughts on my podcast, which is called the Will to Change. And then I had the wonderful fortune of writing this book from. With a partner who was able to distill the themes that I had been talking about on the podcast into a book structure.

Very beautiful. It follows, actually, if you think of it like the caterpillar into the butterfly metaphor, it follows the. The hungry caterpillar, which might have been like the build of a successful career. You know, it's the accumulation of success and recognition and assets and appreciation and goodwill and yes, you know, hopefully success, like monetary success, although DNI has never been about that. And then it, and then it sort of. The caterpillar changes shape fundamentally, but still a lot of the ingredients it needs for the next part of its journey. But it will reemerge as something completely unrecognizable. And yet containing all the wisdom and knowledge that the caterpillar accumulated, follows our path as humans through change like this.

It is a big dislocation from your identity. You know, it's a big. And unexpected too. I'd say this was not something maybe the DNI folks and corporate social responsibility, ESG folks, like through the meat grinder kind of, you know, or in the earlier stage of this. But I think the dislocation is going to be felt by all of us and we have no idea what's ahead. But what I do know is that radical reinvention is going to be probably something we need to get good at. So the book is about that. The book is about the emotional process of that, the letting go, the grief.

I really like talk about it because it's what I. That's what I've been going through a lot of grief and a lot of. At the same time, hope in the later chapters, but where does that come from? How do you get there? And we just have to have so much grace and appreciation for ourselves at this time and everything that we've committed to, the devotion that we've shown the.

The.

How much we've cared. I hope if you're listening to this, you're even a leader who's not in dni, but you care deeply about humans and what makes all of us tick and what enables us to be healthy. And I think we have a lot to work with in our next iteration and. And I'm hoping the book kind of helps you locate yourself in that change and gives you a bit of a road map. Although it's not a map, it's a compass is what I like to say, because maps change all the time and the terrain changes all the time, but the compass is like the orienting principle. But we gotta get quiet. Like we're being made to be quiet right now to really tune into what direction is showing itself to me. Like, what am I meant to.

What kind of butterfly am I meant to be? And that takes some stop and quiet and focus and presence and really like deep listening and also courage to say something better is ahead, something different is ahead. I may not be able to predict it, and it may not look like what I've done and who I've been, but it is the next evolution for me. And I'd love us to have that energy because that's much more generative, obviously.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jennifer, I could talk to you all day, but we're gonna have to stop here, unfortunately. But thank you so much for your Words of wisdom and your insight. Tell everyone again the name of your new book. And is it out now or. It's coming out soon.

It's actually out now. It's on Amazon and on my website, Jennifer Brown Speaks, and it's called the Shape of Change, and it's my fifth book. And if you were intrigued by some of the inclusive leadership stuff we talked about today, the book before, that's wonderful, that's called how to Be an Inclusive Leader, second edition. Maybe there will be a third. Although I'm waiting for the maybe, the day that's not coming when things kind of settle down. You can't read a third edition if you write a third. You know, you can't nail things down and it's a hard time to do that. So.

But it's a very good book. I rewrote it in 2022, so it's absolutely, like full of the latest, you know, I think best thinking that we all had coming out of Pandemic, George Floyd, all of that learning and just I'm on the socials, you know, Jennifer Brown, Jennifer Brown Speaks, so you can find me everywhere. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you. And all of Jennifer's information is also in the show notes, so be sure and check that out so you can follow her online on social and find all of her books and her podcast, everything else. So, again, thank you so much, Jennifer, for being here. We really appreciate it. And that's a wrap. I'm Michelle Bogan and that's your DEI minute for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts and don't forget to leave us a review.

If you ever have questions, please visit our website or send us an email. You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram. Links to everything can be found in the episode notes. This episode was produced and edited by Podgrowth with podcast art by our very own Jamie Applegate.