Speaker 1: I'd love to talk a little bit more about, okay, now we've got people in the door, right? We have someone at my company, my fictional company, I hope it's successful, that is focused on this. We have people from ERG groups in leadership positions that have decision-making power, but we're still having a problem with turnover because it's not just about getting people in the door and being able to report that, look at these metrics about our company, we're X representative of this community and that community. How do we make the culture inclusive?

Speaker 2: The first thing I'm going to say, and I will lean into the camera so that y'all get it, stop thinking that training is going to solve your problems. 90% of the calls that we get are people just looking for training. That is not enough. Training is a solution to a much, is a part of a solution to a much bigger solution, right? And so the question that you asked me, Kelly, is like, how do you ingrain it into your culture? There are, I would say, 14 different categories across companies that we look at when we think about diversity, equity, inclusion. All right, let's hear them. I don't know if I'll get all 14 out of them, but I'll tell you some of them. The first is leadership and accountability. So the goals, the metrics, the strategies that you create at the top have to be sustainable for every level of your company, and that's what you should be thinking about when you're doing diversity, equity, inclusion. You need to create goals, metrics, outcomes, and rewards for people who meet them in your company. And sometimes a reward is you did your job, you get to keep your job, right? And consequences, if you don't do your job and you're not doing it well, and we've exhausted and done everything in this formula to make it right, and it still doesn't work, that is probably time for that person to move on, right? But leadership and accountability, you need to be looking at diversity, equity, inclusion from that lens. Job compensation, offer benefits, et cetera, wellness even in your company and what that means needs to include components of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The way that you communicate in your company, I'm talking about standing meetings, all team meetings, executive team meetings, et cetera. In every agenda that you have, diversity, equity, and inclusion needs a spot for you to talk about it. And when you talk about it, I'm not just talking about training programs, I'm talking about how did our product and development go when it comes to DEI, what's that data looking like, right? Because you're always going to look at data, but now you need to be able to include demographics in it so that you can understand if and when there are gaps, which is why I'm building a company that's doing that slowly but surely. The next is education. I'm not going to take away from training. I'm just not going to ride it till the fucking wheels fall off like most people do. I'm telling you that you do need training, but training needs to one, be customized around the outcomes that you're developing for your company.

Speaker 1: I want to take this one step further in graining this into the culture, right? So I think what is really unfortunate you often see is employees saying, okay, this person only got this role because of the focus on DEI. Whether it's a woman, black person, any minority, I think that, unfortunately, that perspective comes through a lot. And so we're being told, okay, don't stay silent. Speak up when you see things like this happening. That mindset, that aspect coming into the conversation. From your perspective, how do you do that also in a professional setting, in a professional way? Because I mean, I know how you do it on social media, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So we have this thing at DiverseCity and Inclusology where we speak about tokenization versus representational equity, right? And how as a company do you practice representational equity as opposed to tokenization? Because like you said, say you get the populations in the door and change is not happening. There's a couple of reasons why that could happen. The main one is usually that you don't want to listen to that person. You brought them in to make you feel better. So when a person, for example, is looking at your strategy, if you're a person at the entry level and you go to a sponsor or a mentor that you have in a company, or you even go directly to your CEO because they have an open door policy, and that person tells you, here's what we're seeing. One, if you're the person that's going to that conversation, especially if you're going to talk to a tech CEO, you better be coming with some data, both qualitative and quantitative. You need to show this person how it's impacting their company and how it's impacting the people in it, right? So if you want to prove that case, for example, you get with your HR department, or you get with your manager who has access to that data, and you print it out, you have a conversation, you even build an alliance within your company so that multiple people understand it. Because the more people who listen to you and speak for you, the louder that voice is and speak with you and not just for you, right? And when you take that conversation to your CEO, again, make sure that you have that information if you're at the entry level or any level that says, here's the problem. Now, here's the myth that most human beings have. When you go to represent the problem, you have no solution. And one of the things, and I'm a CEO, so I'm saying this very bluntly, one of the things we get tired of is hearing about all the problems and not hearing enough about solutions. And so if you're going to go in there with a plan, remember, a plan has the problem and the solution. And so you need both, right, no matter what level you are at. Understand though that the CEO might be more prone to listen to the people who sit at the table with them daily. So make sure you have a representative or multiple representatives there who understand that. Now, as a CEO, it is your job to make sure that you instill those competencies in your colleagues who sit around the table with you. If you're hiring them, you're paying them, you're building their job descriptions, you build that into it, right? And make sure that you have somebody who knows what they're doing. Your chief diversity advisor or officer should be helping you do that with information from your employee voice. You see, because entry level employees, mid-level employees, you'll hear people say, we listen to all our employees. Yeah, you do, but you listen to them differently. Some people you listen with the intention of acting, the intention to act, and some people you listen with the intention just to hear, to make them feel better so they can go back to doing their damn jobs, right? You got to get rid of the latter and place the same amount of respect on a janitor as you would on your CEO when they offer you context that's supported by actual experiences. Because remember, when I say data, how many of you thought about numbers? I'm one of them. Numbers are data. They just have to be selected and applied accurately. And it's important for us to create spaces for feedback loops in our company with the intention that there's going to be action that is followed. Because if people come to you and complain and they still see you do nothing, you start to lose credibility. And when you lose credibility, you lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose employee voice because they stopped speaking to you.

Speaker 1: And I want to emphasize the point that you made about listening to everyone equally regardless of their title or position within the company because they're also experiencing these things differently. They're experiencing diversity, equity, inclusion, and how that is affecting the company in different ways. Because the person at the top of the company is not going to hear all of the little things, that an entry level employee might hear, might experience on a daily basis. And so I think sometimes it's even more important to hear what's going on at those lower levels because by the time it gets to you at the top, it's filtered. It's a game of telephone too. That's right. That's right. But I just wanted to give you the space. Is there anything else that you would add to wrap up the discussion?

Speaker 2: Now is the time for some radical shifts. And so for example, you hear me saying things to you like, you need to give your employee resource group a decision making power at your board table or something like that. Some people are going to say, we've never done it that way. Well good, because the way that you have done it is showing that it's not. So now try something different. And I mean so different and radical that you'd be surprised that the outcomes might blow your mind. The thing about a movement is that it doesn't stop. That's what makes movement movement is constant. And so it's important for us in our movement now to be constant. And then that's going to take some radical decision making to try some shit that we've just never done before.

Speaker 1: I think that that's really powerful point to end on. So I appreciate you sharing that.