Non-Profit Leadership Conference UW Parkside 2023

I'm very excited to kick off your day with a topic that is so near and dear to my heart, all about belonging. I first want to ask, though, by show of hands, in your organizations, when you talk about your workplace culture in the environment, do you use the word belonging A little bit? Okay. And for those who raised your hand, do you have any intentional strategies or initiatives around fostering a workplace cultural belonging? Okay. How about diversity, equity, inclusion? Do you have strategies and initiatives around diversity equity inclusion by show of hands? Okay. A lot more. So, to me, belonging is very much rooted in diversity, equity, inclusion. And to me, it really reflects the latest iteration of this conversation and collective learning around diversity, equity, inclusion. I'll get into that a little bit. And I know sometimes people get really frustrated. My guess is with this crowd, you're not asking questions like, when is DEI going to go away? I get that question a lot. And I always remind people, in case you are kind of like, well, what's the answer? I always do remind people it's not going to go away because at the end of the day, it's about people. It's about creating the environment that we all need to thrive and to be our best. So until all of our work gets automated or done by ChatGPT, there'll be some need for it. But then to me, it's just sort of like an ongoing conversation around things that we're doing in our respective organizations that bubble up collectively across our country and across the world, that we start to think about it and talk about it in different ways. Different ways. And so I think belonging is really the reflection of that as well. I think it's taking these concepts around diversity, equity, inclusion, and we're speaking about them more thoroughly and more thoughtfully when we talk about them in terms of belonging. I'll get into that a little bit. But the other thing that I really like about belonging, it seems to be a more welcoming and inviting way to bring other people into this conversation. Where in the past, I think when we talked about diversity, equity, justice, accessibility, those could be triggering words, or people don't see themselves in it. So they think, well, it's not about me. Maybe it's even advantaging people who don't look like me. I don't want to be part of it. But the truth is, to create thriving workplace cultures, it requires everybody to invest in that. Because guess what? We all have an impact on the culture just by showing up. And so belonging is a way I think everybody can see themselves in this work. And then everyone is maybe More compelled to do their part. That makes sense. So that's what I really want to break down today in my keynote, just to kind of kick things off. So what I am going to cover is I'm going to help you understand what belonging is and why it matters to you and your roles at leaders in your organization. Give you some really practical ways to think about what you can do right away to foster a culture of belonging. And hopefully you'll leave with some really good ideas again that you can implement right away. That's what I'm going to talk about. Really, what I hope the end goal is is that you leave as excited about this new way of thinking around diversity, equity, inclusion, how it rolls up to belonging, just as I am. And you feel equipped to be able to jump into this ongoing conversation and be part of it with confidence because you've learned some things here today. So sound good? Okay. And I'm also going to make it a little bit interactive as well, so get ready for that. Okay. So let's start first with the fundamentals, like what is belonging? How do I define belonging? And I think it's important to have something tangible around this because it does feel a little squishy. But at the end of the day, belonging to satisfies the basic human need that we all have to have a sense of connection and to feel accepted. But that sounds good. But at the end of the day, how do we know if we have a cultural belonging? How can we actually measure it? So my firm does cultural belonging surveys and we look at these four Cs, I call them four categories of belonging that should be in place in order to really understand if you have a culture of belonging and understand the levers to pull to strengthen a culture of belonging. So the first C is comfort. So that basically means you feel comfortable being who you are coming to work, you feel confident showing up in your own skin. You don't feel like, well, there is a way to be, to be successful in this organization. So I have to work hard to fit in. Or based on the way to be, I'm minimizing who I am so I don't stand out in what could be perceived as different or bad ways. So you feel just comfortable showing up at work. The second C is connection. So you do feel connected to your work in a higher way, higher purpose and meaning, that real draw, that real motivation and inspiration for you. And you also feel a genuine connection with, with your co workers, warm relationships with your co workers. You understand them and you feel that they understand You. The third C is contribution. Everyone wants to feel like they matter. People are interested in your ideas. When you speak up, they listen. Your ideas influence decision making. And the fourth C is the very important C that holds all the other three Cs together. And that's commitment, mostly commitment from leaders. To be investing in the fundamentals that create a culture of belonging through your words and your actions. Because you all as leaders, whether you're a leader of the organization or a leader of your team, you are setting the tone. But I don't want to give anybody a pass. Again, we all influence the culture simply by how we show up. So everyone really needs to see that this is part of how they show up. I like to boil down some of these behaviors that we'll get into that foster culture belonging simply as leadership skills. Just as you wouldn't hire anyone if they didn't have fundamentals like fundamental communication skills, I think we really need to be thinking about how do we make sure people are showing up and seriously exhibiting some of these fundamental skills around belonging. And we'll talk about what those skills, skills and behaviors are. Now, my. Again, I do, like I said, my firm does a lot of these cultural belonging surveys. And I can tell you what. I see some similarities across survey results in the nonprofit sector scores really high on which of the four Cs would you expect that you would score really high on in terms of how your employees are feeling? Any guesses? Absolutely. Connection. And I think Ali or Deborah had mentioned that. Right. Generally, people are drawn to your mission because they have a personal connection, something in their life journey connects them deeply to their work, or it's just really meaningful for them. So that's actually a plus. I think you all. That's a great building block. Can anyone guess, Generally speaking, and this is across the board, not just nonprofits, which of the Cs a cultural belonging survey scores generally the lowest. I think I heard. Say it one more time. Yeah. Contribution. A little bit of comfort. Contribution. And the thing that I'm seeing a lot, especially these days, you know, we do the survey. The survey sort of points you like, where you should dig a little bit deeper. And we do some listening sessions with employees. It's really a sense of the comfort and a contribution coming together in the sense that people don't feel that they can speak up when they're maybe challenged in their work. So a lot of you are working in situations, the individuals in the communities and the families that you're working with. It's challenging. Right. You may be In a role where you end up sort of absorbing a lot of the difficulties from the individuals that you work with, that sits with you. And so we hear from a lot of employees, it's hard for them to kind of express that at work without fear of coming across that they're complaining when they really just look for that valve to just kind of express the challenges that they're going through. Or if you're a new employee and there's a lot to learn, you're a little nervous to speak up and say, I'm not quite sure I understand, or, I know what I'm doing here. How do you say that? And you carry it with you. And that creates a burden. And so that combination of comfort and also contribution. Can I speak up without fear that there'll be backlash of some sort? So that's generally what I see around these four Cs. Okay, so like I said, we can break down the components of belonging, we can measure the components of belonging, but at the end of the day, it really comes down to how individuals feel. So this is a little bit of the interactive part. What I want you to do is turn to the person next to you, or if you're in a table of, like, six or so, you know, just figure it out, Turn to a pair or three people, and if you don't know the person, introduce yourselves really quickly. But I just want you to reflect on this question and answer at work. When do you feel the greatest sense of belonging? So, for example, for me, it's when people laugh at my jokes. Sometimes they're not funny, but when they laugh at it, either I'm like, oh, they get me, or I'm like, they're kind enough to pretend that they get me. So what is it for you? Just take one minute, and then I will invite some of you to share, if you don't mind speaking up in front of the big group. Okay, so go for it. Do you. Do you have that? Do you have the hand? Okay. All right, I'd love to hear some responses. And I will say just a. I know speaking up in a large group is not the most comfortable, but just to like, oh, can you hear me? Nope. Hello? Yep, you can still hear. Oh, okay. But just to maybe extra motivation, I have little prizes for anyone who speaks up. Yes. Yes. Bribing people to participate is not beneath me. All right, who wants to share? When do you feel the greatest sense of belonging? Yes, Hi. I was just sharing that. We always can turn to each other when we have those difficult situations where People need help. We may not be able to figure out what to do. And just I feel like we can always rely on our co workers to be a soundboard and have that good connection and support. So I love it. So you feel a sense of belonging when you can be vulnerable with someone and share what's going on and get advice. All right, thank you very much for sharing. Anyone who speaks up, actually, just see me afterwards to collect your prize. Yeah, I don't want to throw it. I don't want to throw it to you, but yes. Okay, Maybe one or two more. Yes. In the red back there. Thank you. I feel a sense of belonging when I get invited in. I love that. When you get invited in. Yes. And what does that look like at work? Like, what's an example? Like something really tangible. So I think sometimes it's when I get invited into a conversation at a table or sometimes it's that someone remembers perhaps that I or my team should be included in the conversation. Yeah. So I think it has different. It's either personal and sometimes it's functional. Yeah. Yeah. You're thought of either physically they see you and invite you to the table, or depending on what's going on at work, they know that they should reach out to you. I agree. Let's get one more.

It is now we were discussing when.

Everybody has worked on one particular client and we have positive outcomes to celebrate those positive outcomes. So the contribution you're recognizing, the contribution that everyone plays. Yep. Celebrating big milestones, but also little wins along the way. And then we'll do one more. Thank you for sharing. I was just sharing that I. I'm.

From a different culture, I have an accent. And when people listen to me, really listen, sometimes I'm talking and people are listening to me, but they have this black face.

Then it's like you're not listening to me. But then sometimes I send something with the accent they don't understand and they go, what's that? Oh, I love that you're going to hit on a lot of the tips that I'm going to get to. But I think the point of all of this is it's deeply felt. We each know what it feels like and we also know what it feels like to be just tolerated versus a true sense of belonging. And it really does come down to these little things. I mean, no one really said, well, the big company initiative, you know what I mean? It's like those day to day, it comes down to our daily one on one interaction. So that's really how I'm going to start to break it down. Okay, can everybody still hear me? Okay, so now that's what belonging is. Let's get to diving a little bit deeper around why it matters. So Deborah and Allie touched on this a little bit, especially in your roles. It's really hard work, maybe not for a lot of pay. And so there's a lot of stress and pressure around that. And I think as a society as a whole, our well being, our emotional and mental health isn't the greatest. We're not trending in the right direction. And so well being really is. Well, belonging, I should say, is really a pillar for well being. But let's look at some recent stats that are just not making me feel really good. So loneliness is really increasing. You can see some recent stats here. So the percentage of employees that are feeling a sense of loneliness at work now, from 10% to 85%, huge range. It's on the higher end for early career professionals, young people. Let me break this down a little bit more. So the definition of loneliness really is the mismatch between one's desired and actual social relationships between how connected we want to be and how connected we really are. So certainly during the pandemic, social isolation, remote work, increased loneliness, especially among young people who maybe hadn't already formed those connections and those relationships at work that could endure more virtually. So according to The Newport Institute, 61% of young adults, so that's ages 18 to 25, reported feeling lonely either almost or all of the time at work. So think about the impact on your early career professionals, your new hires who happen to be younger. The other thing just, you know, we talk about this a lot, right? Loneliness can also impact our physical and our mental health. So 57% of employees experience really work related stress and burnout. I'm surprised it's only 57%. And you know what? All of this really does come down to engagement. So engagement suffers because either people aren't inspired to do the work or they're not at work to do the work. Right. Some of the emotional and physical toll of stress, burnout and loneliness can result in absenteeism as well as, again, just being really distracted. And that hits engagement, it hits productivity, but mostly it just hits, you know, people not really, really moving your work forward in the way that they need to. And the work that you do really is so important. Okay, so that's a little bit of, again, why belonging matters. There's a lot of research that's happening around this. This is from the Mayo Clinic that really just, you know, shows again that basic human need that we all have to feel connected and accepted is really a pillar for well being. That's one reason why it matters. The other reason is you just are going to achieve better outcomes with a culture of belonging, right? So again, if people feel confident being who they are, that's more mental capacity, energy, time to really focus on their work. And that means they're going to be speaking up in meetings, they're going to be contributing their ideas. That leads to better decision making. Better decisions lead to better outcomes. And then certainly you're an organization again where you're achieving great results. But the way you do it, people feel that sense of comfort, connection, contribution, they feel a sense of commitment to the organization that helps with recruiting and retention. So again, ample research that shows organizations that really do invest in the pillars of belonging, which I'm going to get to, it's diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, justice, show better outcomes across the board. Not to belabor the point, but I think it's so important that we're all on the same page and we're really inspired. Why belonging matters. When you have a culture of belonging, people feel confident being who they are at work. They're not spending extra mental energy worrying about trying too hard to fit in or worried about standing out. That means they're going to engage. They're going to pull from their unique backgrounds and perspectives, share diverse ideas. When you can look at your challenges and opportunities from a multitude of perspectives, it leads to more thoughtful, creative, innovative decisions, better decisions, better outcomes. And then you've got this flywheel, right? It really starts with how one individual feels, but it rolls up to collectively, you've got a great engine going, right? And all this leads to the ability to attract the best talent, engage the best talent and retain the best talent. Okay, sold with me. Okay, so sounds really. Oh, actually sorry if still you're not sold. I got one more for you. I got one more. Why you should care about belonging, you should care about belonging because the youth of America cares about belonging. I always like to say, if you want to know what workplace culture trends are common three to five years from now, look to see what high schoolers are up to and college kids are up to. I got three kids that fall in that Gen Z category. I am studying them all day long to see what are they talking about, how are they talking about. And I can definitely tell you things that I saw them doing in middle school I now see emerging into the workforce. Give you a really quick example. So My oldest son, who's now 20, he's a junior in college. I remember in middle school, he woke up on a Tuesday and said, mom, I'm not going to go to school today. I need a mental health day. And I said, oh, what? Remember I'm Gen X, right? I'm just happy to have a job. I don't ask for much, I don't. All this mental health day, what is that? And when he told me, I said, that's Saturday, that's not a Tuesday. But he was serious and he did need it. But you know what? He also could articulate what he needed because he had the language, the lexicon, and that was middle school. So now he. His first summer internship. Last summer he had a big fancy job at Morgan Stanley in New York City. How'd you like it? He goes, it was really stressful. So I asked my manager, you know, what are some of your resources and policies around work life balance at 20? Again, I'm just happy to have a job. They're immersed in this. They have the language, they can show up and articulate what they need. We gotta be ready for them. So my daughter is a freshman at the University of Virginia. Dropped her off, I don't know. In August, I was actually surprised how much this topic of belonging was the focus of almost everything, of parent orientation, student orientation, dorm hall orientation. This is a picture of the convocation. All the freshman students came together and the president spoke and shared words of wisdom. Belonging, belonging, belonging. Why? They know those statistics I just shared with you. That's their demographic. They care about these kids, they're worried about these kids. They ask these kids, we want you to belong. What might get in the way of that? Are you a first generation student? Are you a transfer student? Are you a college athlete? Did you come from a rural background, Urban background? Everybody is showing up worried that they're not going to fit in, especially their freshman year. They've gone overboard to talk about this, to let them know what the resources are to make sure they speak up for mental health. That population is at risk and the schools know it. Also, the schools know when people feel that sense of belonging, they're contributing more. Their thoughts, their ideas, and that leads to a thriving learning environment. And, and they're in the business of learning. And then the third reason they said, is knowing how to contribute to a culture of belonging, which is being confident in yourself, but also allowing other people to be equally confident is a leadership competency. So they hammered on those three things. So I'm talking about these three things. But these students, when they come out in 2027, they're going to be sitting in your interviews and asking, tell me about your culture. Belonging. What does it mean? They've got the language now. So anyways, if you didn't believe me before, this was like my. Now you have to, okay, so, so, so, so important. But guess what? We all have work to do. No organization. We're early ish in this journey around thinking about belonging in a really deep and thoughtful way. And how does that translate into the workforce? So we have more work to do. And this is a stat from the Deloitte Institute of Inclusion. One way to think about belonging is again, to what degree are people minimizing who they are, working too hard to fit in, afraid of standing out? It's a phenomenon called masking. So not the COVID masking, but, you know, masking minimizing, hiding who you are to fit in. So this stat shows that 61% of employees. This is more than half of the workforce. So think about your own organization. 61% of employees mask at work. And you would think, okay, in a. Well, I know in the nonprofit sector you're more women dominated. So you might think, okay, well, men in the minority, maybe they feel that way. Or people of color who might be in the minority feel that way. No, this is 60% of humans. Because again, everybody has something where they feel that they just have to work hard to fit in. But now, to the degree to which it happens and how much it weighs on you, it can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. That can lead to absenteeism, that can lead to reduced engagement and productivity. And if it's really extreme, it leads to attrition. So again, like I mentioned, my firm does these surveys across the whole organization around a culture of belonging. But I like to throw this question up just as a. Just a litmus test, right? To what degree are we always editing ourselves at work, afraid to stand out, not really being our true, authentic selves in a confident way? Sometimes it comes down to just how do we show up in meetings? So I just want you to reflect on this question. And by show of hands, if you don't mind being honest, let's just take a pulse of this room for you personally, you personally, reflecting over the past week or so, was there a time when you didn't speak up, ask a question, or express your authentic opinion? Just by show of hands, I'm gonna say about 60% of the room. So we all know that we can all do our part. To create an environment where maybe that number is 20%. I don't think it'll ever go away. But you know, just as an example of we can all do a little bit better, a little bit more. So let's get into like, well, what does that look like? So I'm going to sort of walk you through, step by step, how to create or foster a culture of belonging. Now, if you think of belonging as the outcome, the cake, I need to start first with the ingredients and then I need to give you the directions. So these are the ingredients, the ingredients to belonging. Ingredient number one is diversity. Now diversity is an easy ingredient because it's just there. But the nice thing about belonging is when we think about diversity, we're not thinking only in terms of those superficial dimensions of diversity that are obvious to see that we tend to focus on a lot here in the United States, race and gender, for example. Belonging is more thorough and more thoughtful and it's a broad and inclusive understanding of diversity and appreciation of all the many dimensions of diversity, the obvious ones that we can see and the hidden ones that we can't see, and the intersectionality of how they all work together. Because that's what makes each of us unique. And our degree of feeling, that sense of belonging or not isn't based on one dimension of our diversity. It's based on everything that makes us who we are. Our backgrounds, our life stage, where we grew up, how we grew up, our education, our family status, our learning differences, leadership styles, strengths. All of that is rolled up. And so belonging really takes into account. Diversity isn't one dimensional, two dimensional, it's not superficial, it's everything. And this is where I think the hook for people who would say, well, I'm not diverse. Again, there's not some diverse people and non diverse people. We're all people with dimensions of diversity that make up our identity. And I think that's an easy way for people to be like, oh, okay, so tell me more. Because I am then diverse, I am unique. And then people can start to see, well, what aspect about me do I feel like I maybe, you know, I don't feel that sense of belonging to and doing this work for a lot, a lot of very common things that come up when I pose that question. In leadership teams, being an introvert in an extrovert centric world or team is a very common one. Frankly. Some more deep and personal ones have come up. When I was leading teams, the default is team bonding over drinks and happy hour. I, I had a recovering alcoholic on My team didn't want to speak up, didn't want to say, you know, this is why I'm not going. But not going. But then felt like people are going to think I'm just not into the team. Hear a lot from young adults, early career professionals. I'm the youngest in the room, no one takes me seriously. Then I hear a lot on the other end. I'm the oldest person in the room. No one takes me seriously. So there's always something. But the main ingredient for belonging is diversity. But the way to think about it is a broad and inclusive lens. Okay, inclusion and equity. Now I'm going to break this down a little bit because a lot of times what I hear from people is, yes, I understand inclusion and I am an inclusive leader. I'm polite and I'm professional. And I said, well there's a spectrum of inclusion and polite and professional really is more contributing to a culture of tolerance. Now a culture of tolerance is not bad, right? Because it's not a cultural exclusion. Most of us are tolerated in our day to day. Tolerance means I recognize differences. I just really don't want to engage in differences. I will stick with the sports and the weather as my primary conversation or I'll really gel with you on whatever we have in common. But I'm not going to gel with you on what's different that might make me uncomfortable or it's unfamiliar to me. Tolerance, not bad. I told you already, I've got three kids, I'll use them again. They tolerate me as their mom, you know, I know they love me deep down inside, but they're like, no, mom, don't come to school. We don't want to see you like, oh my God, mom, you're so embarrassing. So you know, they tolerate me. And I think we all know the difference between tolerated and a sense of belonging. And when you shared person in the front with the plaid, when people talk to you, you have an accent. You can sort of see when you're being tolerated. They're not being rude, but you can tell that they're like, okay, you know, tolerance, we can all do better. But doing better isn't hard. It does take some intentionality. So what's the next level of scale in true inclusion? It's acceptance. It's just recognizing my way of seeing the world is just that it's my way. Boy, I wish everybody saw the way the world I do. But they don't. So I have to be humble enough to appreciate other people, see the world in a different way again to My kids, I don't like the fact that they shun me or they don't really talk to me. But you know, I do understand they're at a different life stage than me. The next level is respect. It's getting harder. Respect is when you don't agree with something, you don't like something, it's very unfamiliar to you, a difference, but you are willing to respect it anyway. Because remember respect as a two way street. So what that looks like with my kids is I respect that they're at an age where they need to exert their independence. I don't like it, but I do respect it. Just as I hope they would respect me when I need for them to not ask me for money when I'm a zoom call. Right? Respect is a two way street. But the pinnacle of true inclusion is really appreciation. And that means you value diversity so much because of all the things that we talked about, diverse perspectives, life experiences, leads to better thinking, more creativity, better outcomes. You are willing to be flexible in your approach, and that's the equity piece. Equity is just being flexible beyond one size fits all. You're willing to be flexible in your approach to embrace that diversity, even if it makes you uncomfortable. You're willing to be flexible in your approach for someone else to feel that sense of belonging, even if you have to go out of your way. A true inclusive leader isn't someone who walks up and talks about niceties, the sports, the weather. You're creating a culture of tolerance. A true inclusive leader will read the room and say, if I'm feeling comfortable in this room, someone here is feeling uncomfortable because of the dynamics. What can I do to step out of my way and take a flexible, equitable approach to help everybody feel that sense of belonging? What that looks like with my kids, just to make it really simple, is if the end goal is I want to spend time with them, I got to figure out how to spend time with them in ways that's interesting to them. I have to go outside of my comfort zone and sit with my boys and watch a Marvel movie. Shoot me. Now I would rather not, but if I want to spend time with them, I'm meeting them in a way that's comfortable for them. I'm being uncomfortable. And sometimes as leaders we have to do that. We're setting the tone for others. We, our real job of leaders is to bring out the best in others. So that means we got to maybe do a little bit of work around that for my daughter, the same way applying a truly inclusive and Equitable approaches. I follow her to Forever 21. Shoot me now. I really would rather want to, but I'm spending time with her. Alright, so does everybody understand sort of the true difference? When I talk about inclusion and equity, those are the ingredients along with diversity, the ingredients for belonging. But now I promise to give you the instructions. So the instructions are the action steps, the behaviors. What do you do with these ingredients? And to me they're, there's really three. I call them inclusive behaviors that if you can practice in your daily interactions, in your daily decision making. Because again, when you all gave me examples of when you feel the sense of belonging, nobody said it's the big initiative, it's how that individual made me feel. Right? So there's three categories of behaviors that are really easy to do. I'm going to break it down, give you tons of examples. And I really, when I do this work, I like to, I don't like to pull people out of their work. You're too busy, you know that's not sustainable. I like to think about how can you apply these behaviors to your work, what you're doing anyway. And most of us are in meetings, so I always have an eye of how could you show up in a meeting a little bit differently with these inclusive behaviors in mind to create that culture of belonging in meetings more often than not. So you just get a more highly engaged, better meeting. So inclusive behavior number one is to be self aware of your own identities as well as your blind spots. There's two pieces to this. I want everyone to view the diversity that's inherent in you as a true asset. Again, diverse life experiences, backgrounds, diversity in terms of gender identity, age, religion, all that gives you a unique perspective on the world and the work. The workplace needs to know really what you think based on all of that in order to again have a multitude of perspectives to lead to better decision making. Whatever makes you unique, whatever you feel that, gosh, I'm standing out in some way because my identity is somehow different, an asset you must lean into that is an asset. At the same time, I don't want you to over rotate and say I'm wonderful because look at me. You also have to be humble enough to know your identities and your way of looking at the world is just one. Everybody else has theirs as well. So you got to have a little bit of space for both. So appreciate the diversity inherent in you as an asset and also acknowledge the limitations of your own experiences. Sounds good. What does that look like? How do I show up in a meeting Better. Here's how I try to show up in a meeting, keeping this in mind. So one way is I just really do. Sometimes we don't reflect on what makes us unique. We just show up and assume like, well, this is how everybody sees the world because you know, everybody's like me. So some of it is just being a little bit self aware. So even before showing up at a, a meeting or a decision or a discussion, I will pause and just like, well, what am I bringing to this? Either unique experiences that I think might contribute or you know, do I already have idea belief assumption in mind that I just want to be mindful of. So that's number one. The second one again is to know that when other people are contributing based on their experiences and it makes you feel uncomfortable to not react but to respond by when that emotional response comes up in, you know, that it's born out of my unique experience and whatever somebody else is saying or doing is out of their unique experience. So before I react, can I just sort of reflect on what's making me feel this way and have a more thoughtful response as opposed to a knee jerk reaction. And the third thing that I try to practice in meetings and honestly this is a big one, especially if you're a senior, right? Because again, you're sort of setting the tone. And I said earlier, a lot of the stress and the sense of not feeling a sense of belonging is people can't speak up because they feel like they always have to have the right answer or do the right thing. When a leader says, I'm reflecting on my background and appreciating the limitations of my experience, I gotta tell you, I don't know. If you don't know, say you don't know. It's such a relief to other people and allows other people to tap into their experience to share. Okay, these are just three examples. There's so many more. And my prize for the people who speak up gives to give it away. It's like a little book that has all a ton of examples of things you can do in meetings to create that culture of belonging. So what I'm going to do is give examples of the other two inclusive behaviors and then I'm going to pause and allow you all to just practice that at your tables a little bit. So, okay, the next two. The second inclusive behavior is again, we're sort of self aware of what makes us unique, but also the limitations of our experiences. In order to fill in the gaps of our own understanding of things. We have to be curious Enough to learn from others. Right? So when we are curious and we ask questions, or we can start to minimize our assumptions and stereotypes and biases that are rooted in our own life experience, as limited as it is, with a little bit more empathy and understanding. Being curious of others helps to round out our own thinking so that we're more thoughtful and empathetic and understanding leaders. So what does that actually look like in meetings? Well, here's a couple of ways that I practice being curious in meetings. I actually slow down a little bit and I take the time when somebody says something I'm just not, oh, okay, huh? No, I actually ask and I dig a little bit deeper. So why is that? Or simply tell me more. Again, that feeling of contribution that you make someone feel, oh, they're really interested in what I have to say. And you also truly round out your understanding. A really simple one is, again, as a leader in a meeting, you might feel like, I gotta just drive through, plow through to get to the end of the meeting, the agenda. But what about pausing and saying, well, what do you think more often? Or even just using that and sprinkling that out throughout the day? What do you think? You'd be surprised how people perk up and maybe share something new or something that helps your own thinking. And then the other one, I think is really important and it takes a little bit more time. But make sure that you are interacting with people outside of your day to day, your social circles or the usual circles that you interact with at work. Invest time in getting to know and build relationships with people who naturally are offering a diverse perspective and lens. And I like to even say at the end of, you know, a really good practice to get into is before you make a final decision, think about, is there an alternative viewpoint that I could reach out to and just check in with to round out my thinking. Being curious is not hard. This one, though, means that we have to just slow down a little bit, which makes it hard. And then the third behavior is. And this one actually I think is hard. When you're curious, you're reaching out, you're getting diverse perspectives and opinions, which is all healthy, it's all good. You are going to inevitably feel like, why did I ask? I'm hearing things that either make me uncomfortable, that's not my idea. So what do you do at this point? A true inclusive leader that's creating that culture of belonging for others, even when it makes you uncomfortable, is that you're working hard to seek to understand, even when you don't Agree. So this is where I get a lot of pushback with this DEI work, because people are like, I am who I am. My beliefs are my beliefs. My values are my values. I don't want to change those. And the point of this is not to change what you believe or your values. I'm not trying to have you change your beliefs. I'm trying to have you be more thoughtful about your behaviors. As a leader, you're setting the tone. Can you put aside your own discomfort to make sure you're at least understanding what someone says so that can factor into your decision making, which will ultimately help you to be a lot more thoughtful? This one's hard, but here's some ways to do it. Just practice the active listening. And that means being really mindful of not interrupting someone to argue your point to make your case, at least until they're finished, and then argue your point and make your case. But really try to listen as opposed to formulate your next thought while they're talking. The other thing is I really challenge myself. Even if I didn't like what they heard, at least sharing back what I learned from them, they feel heard and appreciated. And that's really respect. I don't have to like or agree with what you said, but I do respect that that's your opinion. So much so that I'm sharing with you what I heard from you. And then when you're really in a bind and you know you have an impasse, you have a disagreement, I always like to challenge you to frame the divergent viewpoints as a both and. As opposed to either or. Either or is so old school, you know, it's like there's a right way or a wrong way, and usually the right way is my way or, you know, it's the best decisions. Especially in this very, very, very complex world, is really a both. And how do we both do this and do that? I'm going to give you just a really simple example. So actually it speaks about generational differences. Working with a client they just hired a bunch of new people, happened to be gen zers early in their career. They're mostly hybrid and virtual. So on these virtual team meetings, the new people were saying, we are exhausted always having to have our cameras on. Really? Like, I don't mind showing up in the meeting. I know it's my job, but could we just not have to have the cameras on? But the more senior leaders were like, are you kidding me? I mean, you're working from home. You know, I never had the option of doing that when I was early in my career, I'm just asking you have your camera on for higher engagement. They were sort of at an impasse. And I said we got to look at it from a both. And how do we both allow people to feel not the extra burden of having the camera on and be present and engaged in meetings. And what they ended up doing, again, it wasn't a camera on or camera off situation. They ended up saying the default will be cameras on. We do appreciate seeing each other cameras on. If your camera is off, we know it's because you need it to be off and you're taking the commitment to have cameras on as much as possible seriously. We're not going to ask any questions. Have your camera off if you need to. And they're working like that and you know, it's working out okay. Okay. Any questions before I give you a challenge to kind of put these three inclusive behavior best practices into practice? Any questions or comments about any of this so far? By show of thumbs up, thumbs sideways, thumbs down, is it making sense? Is there anything that I either flew by too fast or you're just not quite buying it? I have a question. Yes. My question is when you give those examples of like what you might do with your kids, like go to Forever 21, for example.

Can you give us an example of.

A situation of what you might do with a colleague who you don't relate to as you know as well or you don't. You're not into the same things. I would start with my. With the end goal in mind, right. So I'm assuming in this scenario the end goal is I want to build a better relationship with a colleague. And we have a lot, we just don't gel. Right. I would start with the end goal and then I would invite the person, you know, what are some meaningful ways? And then I would go out of my way to do that and then hopefully set the example that they reciprocate. I'll actually give you an actual example. So remember I said when I was leading and I was doing the default happy hour and the individual on my team finally couldn't take it and came to me and said, I'm a recovering alcoholic, come on. And that dawned on me. I was like, you know, I didn't even ask. I didn't even ask what's a meaningful team building. Right. I just sort of did what was easy and convenient for me and maybe what I orient around. So we sat down and I said to the team, I had a leadership team of five People at that time. And I said, the goal is that we spend time together, we build that trust, camaraderie. What are your ideas? And what they ended up coming up with is they said, we'll each take a month and we'll plan it and we'll do something that reflects something that's meaningful to them. So we took guitar lessons because one person on my team really loved guitar. We did pottery. One person loved that. We did kayaking. So it really sort of expanded it to each person was proud to do it because they got it to show a little bit of themselves. Everyone had to be pushed outside of their comfort zone at some point. But it really showed. Again, asking, really listening, inviting people in and then being flexible enough to do it. So boil that down with just like on a one, on one. But that's a very good question. Any other questions or comments? Let's just do a time check here. Oh, we're good on time. Okay, so here's your challenge and it's really more of a fun challenge. Help you get to know each other, warm up for the day, but actually do start to practice these behaviors. And I say practice these behaviors when the stakes are low because if they can just become habit, you'll utilize them when the stakes are a little bit higher, when the dimensions of diversity that you're trying to bridge across are maybe more consequential. It's the same behaviors. We just have to not get nervous and not tap into them when we're confronted with diversity that, oh, I'm not sure how to handle this to create that sense of belonging. So here's a fun exercise. So I want you to actually work in pairs. So break yourself up as such. If you need to do work in groups of three, that is fine as well. But I want one person to first focus on being self aware. So just again reflect on what is unique about me where that only I can do my job the way I do it because I'm really utilizing my skills, my talents, my experiences, my backgrounds that are uniquely me. So considering your own life journey, share a unique experience or a perspective that really influences why you chose the profession that you chose or the job that you have. Have a little bit of fun with it while that person's talking. I want the other person to practice being curious and seeking to understand. So be curious by simply asking, well, why is that? Or tell me more or a follow up question. Really challenge yourself to listen and to be intentional about that and then share with the person what you learned from them that could have been just interesting new or noteworthy. Right. To show that again you are really seeking to understand these are the behaviors. Have fun. Oh, and then switch. Right. So have fun with it. And I want you to just know what these behaviors feel like to demonstrate and what it feels like to receive on the other end. And then I'll ask a few of you to share about what you talked about and about the experience and then we shall wrap up. Okay, so is everybody clear in the instructions? I will leave them up here. Ok, so let's take maybe just five. Five minutes. It turn this off. Can you. Can you get one of me? Is it possible to get like me but also the room? Yeah, but like on the stage, but also like with stuff. Oh, you know what? Maybe from. Do you have any from the back of the room that gets people's heads? Oh yeah, you have buns of those. Okay, cool. Thanks. Okay.

I have a zoom lens on.

Well, I think the. The main thing is like just like people will see me on stage. But then from the back of the room, if you see that the room is full. That's like the main. Yeah, that's the main.

I made sure of that. The attention show. The room got nice. Sound was getting a little funky in here.

No, the sound was not so good.

You know, for the room.

Not for the. For you. Your fault. Yeah, I could feel. Hear a little feedback, but you know, and then. Can I see it? Can I see any? Can I see any? I don't think I even want it. It might depress me. Never mind. I shouldn't have asked. Never mind.

Wait till I get the right one. You'll see the wrong one. I just gotta learn not to do that.

To climb.

Nope, nope.

You throw them. You throw them off.

You know, we were just want to see him and. Yeah, I know what I got to do.

Yeah.

I was trying not to do flash in here to not throw people off. You know, they're sitting there watching, you know, so tried to wait when they like started talking like this. And I can get distracted. But we got some nice, nice footage. But you're not staying the whole day.

I have one more workshop after this and then I'll stay for lunch and then head back. You don't.

You want nothing from.

Nah. Yeah. Okay. Hopefully that was enough time for everybody to share. And I'd love to hear from one or two of you if you don't mind. I'd love to hear from one or two of you. Maybe your answer to the question something about your unique life experience that led you to the work that you do. But then also, how did it feel to be on the receiving end of somebody who is intentionally seeing, seeking, being curious and seeking to understand are also being on the giving end of it. So anybody like to share? All right. There with the red? Yeah.

Hello. Dr. Janine Swenson. I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I want to compliment you on your beautiful slides and super well organized.

Oh, good.

So, sadly, I think I'm at the wrong conference.

Oh, no.

I'm in medicine. I have my own mental health clinic. But I'd like to share just a couple things. My first career was in pediatrics and pediatric cardiology. And it got super burnt out as I was sharing with Blake. And so I went back and got a second license in systemic psychotherapy. And everybody assumed that I was gonna stop being a doctor and start being a psychotherapist. Of course, not true. When you go back to school, you just layer on, like, more experience, more stuff. So anyway, if anybody decides to change careers midstream like I did, be prepared that people don't get it. They don't understand. You're not starting over. You're not going to the bottom of the hierarchy and starting off as a brand new therapist. You're layering on and you're doing more stuff. So that's my advice if you decide to, like, change your course a little bit.

I love that. And you are at the right conference. Belonging knows no boundaries. But to your point about, you know, people misunderstand or make the assumptions. What if then somebody had the presence of mind, a leader, to say, tell me more about your life journey and your experience that led to that. So I understand it better as opposed to just immediately, oh, I heard that. And now I'm assuming right. So I think that's what we're trying to do is just practice those behaviors so somebody doesn't feel judged unnecessarily, but you feel like you're curious enough to want to actually learn more. Thank you for sharing. Let's do one more. Anybody else? Hello, everyone. Can you hear me, though? When Kirby and I spoke? I'm Felicia Dalton, if you didn't know. So when Kirby and I spoke, actually, the life experiences that we both had is actually what brought us to our current profession. It was definitely different lynch experiences. However, it guided our path in how we got here. And I think sometimes when you work with co workers, you don't realize it and you just take people at face value. But then when you have those conversations, it's like, what? I never Knew that. I like that. Next time I'm going to title my slides. What? Because that's actually what this work is all about, right? Two things. Investing the time to be curious, seeking to understand. You do get to know people beneath the surface. That really is the source of belonging. It's also the source of true joy in life. Warm relationships with connected relationships with other people. The workplace is no exception. So that's number one. We could all use more joy at work if we kept these things top of mind. The second thing is there's so much diversity around us that goes untapped because we're dealing with the superficial and we're just plowing forward to get our work done. Spending a little bit of time to understand diverse life experiences and perspectives that can inform your work in new ways if just given the opportunity to come out really is an asset. It's truly a differentiator. In the interest of time, I'm going to wrap up, but I hope your main takeaways are reframing diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, accessibility. In terms of belonging is I think a really effective strategy. I think it reflects a maturity of thinking around this work in a way that invites people in to see that everyone can be a part of it. Also making the behaviors really simple. I think a lot of times it's hard to get traction with any type of workplace culture efforts because it's very theoretical and people don't know. But what is my ask? What can I do? I tried to boil these down into just examples of behaviors that we can apply in our day to day in our daily interactions and decision making as a team. You may want to think about it a little bit and decide what are some rules of engagement rooted in belonging that we can all hold ourselves accountable for. So it's going to be taking it that next step. I'm actually doing one of the breakout workshops and I'm actually going to give two case studies of two different organizations. A really big one and a really small one. How how they took these behaviors around belonging and embedded them into the organization in a sustainable way to really transform the culture so you can actually see what it looks like to take these concepts and integrate them into your operations. What else do I want to say? Yeah, I think that's it. So for those of you who are brave enough to speak up, join me afterwards. I'm going to give you your little books. It's just a little flip book. It's of kind called Everyday Acts of Inclusion. Small little things that you can do in meetings in your daily interactions to channel that sense of belonging. And if you don't have a don't get a book, you can scan this QR code concepts and integrate them into your operations. What else do I want to say? Yeah, I think that's it. So for those of you who are brave enough to speak up, join me afterwards. I'm going to give you your little books. It's just a little flip. It's called Everyday Acts of inclusion. Small little things that you can do in meetings in your daily interactions to channel that sense of belonging. And if you don't get a book, you can scan this QR code and download the digital versions of my resources that all help you to be that leader that fosters a sense of belonging which and the truth of the matter is none of this is rocket science. All of us as leaders know these things intuitively. The challenge is we get so busy in our day to day. So what I really like to do is equip you one, inspire you to remember why you're taking the time to focus on these things that many of which you already do, continue to double down and do them with confidence because they absolutely make a difference. But two, pick one or two new habits that you can just weave in until it becomes habit. Because then when you're confronted with issues, challenges that really push you outside of your comfort zone, you have a baseline from which to start to really bridge across some of those differences when it matters most. I'm going to pause there. I do think we have literally a minute for any questions that you may have of me. If not, I also I will be sticking around for my workshop. I'll be sticking around for lunch. I got a little booth outside, so lots of opportunities to approach me and chat and share your own experiences and ask questions as well. But with that I am going to say thank you so much and I am really looking forward to the rest of this conference. Thank you. Thank you. A lot to think about and I have a feeling we just scratched the surface of this work. So looking forward to learning more from you.