Challenges of the C-Suite, Leading with Courage with Dr. Ernie Gundling & Dr. Cheryl Williams, Episode 77

Hello everybody, this is CB Bowman. How are you today? Let me try moving my camera around so you can see me better. There you go. Look, we're having some technical difficulty for some strange reason today. We did test this, um, with my having 2 guests on, which, you know, normally I have only one. But today we have 2 special guests that have written an incredible book called— can you see it? Oops. Inclusive Leadership: Global Impact. And I really want you to hear them. They're having trouble with the mic. So let's see if we don't— I didn't want to lose you. I didn't want you to think we weren't going to be on today. By the way, we've discovered a secret. We will be on every Tuesday now, and if we don't have a special guest, which will be rare because I just found out this morning we're booked to April. Can you believe I'm so popular? Oh my gosh. It's so—

it's—

no, it's all about you all. It's terrific. You know, we are actually sort of rebranding the show It's still called Challenges of the C-Suite, but our emphasis is on the courage to lead. With that, hi Julie. I see Julie just logged in and Nicole logged in. Let's see if we can get some voice going. We could see everybody, but we're having challenges with the voice. Cheryl, do you want to try speaking?

Hello, hello everyone.

Yeah, no voice.

Don't look okay. I'll try it again.

Ernie, do you want to try speaking?

Sure.

Can you hear me? No voice. Okay, let me see if I can call my IT person and see if it'll work. Um, hold on, let me send her a text message because my phone is updating. You know, guys, this technical stuff is unbelievable. Okay, I've sent her SOS, and I am also going to try calling her even though my phone is down. Because it's updating. So let's hope that she picks it up. John, you said you can hear both, so you can hear the speakers. Hi, Jose. You can hear them, but I can't. Now what's up with that? All right, let's just go to audio and see if it's— now I am showing That my audio is working. I don't know what's causing this. I'm stumped, everyone. Let me, um, let me try unpinging, um, because I remember Carla said to me, make sure that I don't have any LinkedIn open. That could affect it. So I'm closing everything down, and let me come back to you. Oh, I think I know what I did wrong. Let's try this again. Cheryl, can you speak?

Cheryl? Hello?

Hello?

Got you.

How are you? Yes.

Hi there.

How are you?

Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. It was my fault.

How are you?

Yes, can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. This is— guys, this is like that telephone ad. Can you hear me now? Okay, it looks like Ernie—

can you hear me now?

Yes. Ernie, can you hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you both fine.

Okay, we're right ready to go. Let me just send Call a note. Tell her.

I think CB is it's really CB. It's really just um it's really uh not good the quality. Oh, it's real staticky.

All right, I don't uh let's try one other thing. Uh instead Settings. Let's go to auto, and you tell me.

I hear you now. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

I didn't do it better now.

All right, well, let's try to rock it out.

All right.

Okay. All right, sounds good.

You know, it is a riot working with technology. You just have to laugh all the time and press buttons. So, um, okay, Julie, thank you for letting us know. Nicole, thank you. Jose, John, everybody. All right. Oh, I love you guys for telling me. Okay, we're ready to rock this out. I have 2 amazing guests, you know. There are times when we talk about what's going on in the C-suite, and then there are times when we talk about DEI. Today we're going to talk about both, right, as a blend, a mix. And I have 2 brilliant people, but you know what I told them? Here's the secret. I tell them, okay, we know you're brilliant, I hear the mind, but you have to be funny too, because on CB's show you've got to bring it all.

Right.

Their book, it's a heavy-duty book, but it's an easy read. Have I got it in front of the camera correct?

Looks good.

Called Inclusive Leadership, Global Impact. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves, and then let's dive in to talk about why are you writing this book? First, ladies first. Cheryl, please introduce yourself.

You want me to do that now?

Yes.

I think you're frozen.

Uh-oh.

Well, just work through it. Just pretend I'm unfrozen.

I can try.

Okay. Introduce yourself, Cheryl. Okay, I'm totally frozen on her side. Ernest, Ernie, can you introduce yourself first?

Yeah, I'd be happy to, and I hope Cheryl can get unfrozen because she's the co-author and co-mastermind behind this book. so we're going to need her in the process. My name is Ernie Gundling. I'm a managing partner at Appareon Global and one of the co-founders of the company. We've been around for 30 years and we help clients that are doing work globally, either in the intercultural space or in the world of DEI. We help them to globalize their efforts. It's been a long journey to get to where we are today. Personally, I lived in Japan for many years as well as in Europe and in Latin America and learned a lot of my lessons the hard way from mistakes that I personally have made and hopefully not repeated too often. But it's a pleasure to be here with you, CB. I appreciate the invitation and looking forward to having this conversation about inclusive leadership and global impact. We think it's a very important subject because so many companies are globalizing their DEI efforts. We don't want to unintentionally engage in cultural imperialism by exporting a US-based view of DEI that's based on US assumptions. We want to be able to see through the lens of each country and the real diversity that exists in each country. and its own inclusion issues. That's what we're all about here.

Ernie, you just took away the part that I was going to talk about. But however, I heard some interesting tidbits in there. I want to find out what mistakes you made so that we don't repeat them. You can help us out here because we're such a global world. But first, let's hear from Cheryl, if Cheryl has me unfrozen. Tell us about yourself, Cheryl. I think she still has any frozen.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Can you hear me now? Okay. Well, thank you. I hope I don't keep going in and out. Apologies, everyone. Yes, my name is Cheryl Williams, and welcome to our conversation today. I am a— I'm considered a practicing cultural anthropologist, corporate anthropologist. Some say I've spent my first 20 years of my profession was in human resources, global HR. I had the opportunity to do that. The second 20 years of my life, I keep putting my life in 20-year chunks. I was a university professor here in Southern California where I live, originally from Indiana, but here I am now in SoCal. The last couple of years since I retired as a university, I've been continuing able to to partner with my dear friend Ernie like that in writing books and trying to pass along some of the lessons we've had. I've had the opportunity to live or work in a little over 80 countries. CB, my area within DEIB is really working at the grounded level of theory, really social justice like that. The fact that it's the right business thing to do is like icing on the cake, or we could reverse it. Because to me, it's really about the people. During the show, I might share a couple of the stories. I've had the opportunity to live and work deep in the Amazon jungle when I was doing my doctoral dissertation, studying with African tribes there. I've spent a lot of time in Africa and more in the tribal areas. I have just really— this is my passion, it's my hobby, it's my work, it's my dedication, is to bringing diversity, inclusion, equity, and creating belonging to all. Thank you once again for letting me join you today.

Thank you. I see Carla is on in case we get into an IT boggle. Everybody, I want to introduce Carla Hanson. Carla is— God, she's my lifesaver. She's my lifeline. She's a dear friend. I know her, her husband, her mom, her dad, her children. And so on, and her husband's mom and dad. So I couldn't do what I do without her. She also is responsible for our overall IT and bookkeeping for CB and companies. I'm glad she's here. I feel safer now. So first, let's talk about And I'm going to ask you to try to keep your answers short, not too short, but that— I've never asked that question, but that's because both of you have such a wealth of knowledge. I want to get in as much as possible, right? So I want to ask Cheryl about being in the Amazon. I want to ask Ernie about the mistakes he's made. I want to ask about the book, why the book. I want to ask Why is it that you said in your book inclusive leadership instead of DEI leadership? I want to talk about the differences between what's happening here in the United States versus Europe. Why does Europe watch us when they have different problems? That's perplexing to me. Don't worry about coughing. I'll be blowing my nose and sneezing because my allergies are rampant, and my wonderful audience puts up with me. It's just, it's real life, and that's how we approach it here. So first, Ernie and Cheryl, why the book?

Cheryl, you want to make a start and I can go with that?

Yes. I will make a start and then Ernie can add, multiply, subtract, and divide from what I say. I have been so fortunate. Some people might even say blessed, the term, to really have had opportunities that someone coming out of Gary, Indiana with the schools like that, that were really good, not so much now, I'm told. to have this experience base that I've learned. There's not a lot of people that look like me, African-American female baby boomers in particular, that really, in my opinion, has that experience base. That's not a good or bad thing, it's just different. When I left the university from teaching, which I love and I certainly miss my students, I met Ernie years ago. We've known each other I said, you know, how can I— what will my next 20 look like? And somehow being able to pass along my stories, pass along my lessons, because one of the things as an anthropologist you learn is to still tell stories.

Right.

And so that's one of the things that I wanted to put in the book and to write about it. So you can see the book has a lot of stories in it because that's how you really can wrap your arms around what diversity really means. Because sometimes they just— in the US, we think it's just race, but diversity is way more than that. What it means to even be included and make someone feel that way. That's why Ernie and I put our heads together and wrote— this is actually our second book that we wrote together. This one's really concentrating on the global impact of what that means. Ernie, what would you— what did I miss?

I just want to ask a few questions first. When I— okay, I'm totally naive. When I think of anthropology, I think about the show on TV, Bones, basically. You know, you're digging and you're finding bones or you're solving mysteries. I remember taking a course in anthropology at the New School I didn't think of it— we thought about it in terms of cultural differences. We didn't think about it in terms of diversity, equity, equality, inclusion. How do you make the leap from digging up bones and the cultural side?

Okay.

Talking about society.

The area of social science that you're talking about is probably best archaeology. which is where you're really getting into the things that people had. That's the utensils, the bones, the tools. And then an anthropologist will come in and talk to you about what were those people like that were handling something that looked like this, you know, what did it mean? And so the people— and the cultural anthropology really drills deep. And what is it about an individual, a human being, that is cultural? Because if you think about it, there's 3 main buckets that, that we live in. We have a personal bucket, we have our biological buckets, and then we have our cultural buckets. Biology is how we're born. If we're born with a sexual orientation, if we're gay or lesbian, that's how we're born. Our personality— introvert, extrovert— that's something we're born with. But then if we talk about personal things, that's just like, do we like to play, uh, do we like spicy foods? Do we like, you know, that's just our personal things. Do we like to play cards? But the culturalness are things that comes out of our beliefs, our values, our attitudes, our behaviors, plus shared by generations over time. In the workplace, CB, when we are talking about what is cultural, so many times people will say, oh, well, that's a cultural thing.

Yes.

It's not a cultural thing. People who steal or murder or do all those bad things has nothing to do with culture. per se, the way I'm talking about it.

Right.

Obviously, you can say your environment and so forth. But so that is why I've dedicated many, many years ago, and the reason why I wanted to really dig deep into the African piece, because there's a lot of Black-white concerns to this day, issues. What is it about being African and American, the nationality, that's cultural that we— first of all, you don't try to train out and take away someone's culture. You need to try to embrace it. You need to— the communication styles, the nonverbal styles, the rituals connected to it. My area within cultural anthropology within corporate is Black, the African American, the Black. That's where I drill deeper is in the race space and then gender. I'll pause now and let Ernie— you can tell I love this.

This is what I do.

You like that? Yeah.

Thank you for clearing that up, because in my mind they were all mixed together, the anthropology and the archaeology of it all. Because the way that, you know, from my studies and the way we see movies, it's kind of really blended together, right?

Yeah.

There's no—

Yes.

You know, line of separation. So I appreciate that.

Now, Ernie, I was on a CB, I was on a— I was in Carriacou. I was in Carriacou, a little remote island on one of the Grenadines. And while I was there doing some anthropology work, I was documenting some of the African behaviors from Africa. There was a team of archaeologists there from, just coincidentally, from the University of San Francisco. And we met each other. We were kind of like at the bar that evening. We were talking. And they invited me to be a part of their study because they were digging up these fossils and digging up these pots and different pieces of, of things, and they wanted me to join them, say, but Cheryl, what were people doing during this time and flavor? So that was a really good thing of how we married. I worked about a week with them and I ended up having to leave because they were there for about 6 months. But that's a really good marriage. I'll never forget that because they would find something and say, But what were they doing with this and why? And was it male or female? Was it good or bad? Was it a weapon or was it not? And that's what sometimes, to what we know, we just want to share that.

And that's where the link is. And I do remember, you know, I worked at the museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, uh, for several years. And so you would go in and you would see all of the diggings, the findings but the way they were displayed and intertwined with the cultural aspect of those that lived during that period of time was fascinating. Ernie, I want to know— okay, which do I want to know first? I want to know why the book.

Yeah, sure. So I think Cheryl gave the good answer that in a way for each of us, it's sharing our life's experience and the experience that we've had through the course of a career. Also, I would say that our primary purpose—

Wait, Ernie. I've got to go there. You're a white dude. What experience can you have? Come on now, let's talk.

Well, I think that's a really good question to ask because I think the assumption is that if you're a white guy, you don't have much to add to DEI. Yet if you think about it—

You have a lot to learn but not a lot to add. That's the assumption.

Yeah. Yet if you think about it, and I run into this sometimes with audiences as well, it's a, what are you doing here vibe.

Yes. That's why I went there.

Let's ask. If you think about it, if inclusion doesn't involve everybody, then it's just fundamentally flawed from the beginning. And you're also making assumptions about the person you're talking to. So I have a certain face and a certain experience, a certain appearance, but you don't know much about my life experience. You don't know that I've lived in other countries where I felt excluded culturally, linguistically. I felt alone. I felt desperate. I felt like I had spent way too long learning the language and still couldn't speak it.

Yeah.

And then those little victories when you learn the code, not just the code of the cultural behaviors, gift-giving, what you do in a family, what you talk about in the first conversation, but also you gradually acquire fluency in the language. You can look at me and make certain assumptions, or what we all have to do is we have to look at each other and try to not make assumptions and to step back and say, In fact, the first lesson one about prejudice reduction is how do we get to know the other person as an individual, as a personality, as opposed to as a stereotype or as a category? One of the great pleasures of working with Cheryl, for example, has been that I think we've gotten to know each other better and better as individuals, and that has helped a lot. I don't think of Cheryl in terms of categories anymore. I think of her as a person who I enjoy very much working together with. So is that enough of it? I mean, I can go on about that one, but—

Yes, no, I love your answer. And I'm so glad you didn't say, I think of her as a person, not as a Black woman, because that's, you know, I was waiting for that and I was ready to jump.

Glad I didn't fall into that one.

But now, you know, I'm laughing not at you but with you because it is so, so typical of what we do as human beings. I was working with a group of women who wanted to move up in the corporate space to sit on boards. So they had a specific group with a specific goal. And I said— they said to me, you know, CB, before you came on, we were just discussing what to do about men who want to join us. And I said, well, what's the question? And they said, well, we're women that want to sit on boards. We don't want men in this meeting. And I said, well, who's sitting on the boards now? They said, men. I said, you know, there's an old Italian expression— and my husband is Italian— which says, keep your enemies— keep your enemies close, keep your friends closer. Or something like that. And I said, so if men make up 99% of the boards, don't you want to find out what they know and how they do it so that, you know, we can move in? Because if you keep them aside, then you don't learn anything. You've got to sit down to the table together and learn together, right? So good answer, Ernie. I like that. You get a tick.

All right.

You get a star.

I haven't gotten in trouble yet. So, you know, back to your question about the book and why we wrote it. So what you showed is the second edition, which we think is much improved. The subtitle of the first edition was From Awareness to Action. And what we've really focused on is for people of goodwill, and there are a lot of them out there who say, inclusion. I would like to be more inclusive. Why would I not want to be more inclusive? Isn't that important to my organization? How do you move in a concrete, practical way from inclusion as a broad concept or from all the dialogue, much of it unhealthy, that we have in this country around race and ethnicity and gender and so forth? How do we move to very practical, steps in the workplace that would allow us to learn about bias, to build some key skills, to work across different boundaries, to become a champion, to get results. Those are actually the 5 dimensions that we cover in the book that are related to moving from awareness to action. How can I, as a leader, how can I be an actual role model for inclusion and for DEI in general instead of avoiding it or running away from it or checking the box or all the different things that people can do to keep this over in a corner or to stay away from it? Or as an ordinary employee, how can I run a meeting or participate in a meeting in an inclusive way? We know from the research on psychological safety that equal airtime is important. How can I make sure that Cheryl gets into the conversation? How can I make sure that both we monitor our own participation and also draw out others? That's something that anybody at any level can do. That's another part of moving from awareness to action. That's our purpose with the book was giving people some practical ways that they can take those steps to be more inclusive, not just in a domestic environment, but in a global setting as well.

Well, speaking of giving Cheryl airtime, Cheryl.

Yes.

Why is it we need something special on inclusion? Doesn't diversity mean inclusion?

Thank you. That's a very good question and we get that quite a bit. Diversity by simple definition is simply representation. It's just difference. If you look at the 3 of us right now on the screen, we have diversity. We don't have to do anything to get diversity. You go to the grocery store tonight, depending on where you live, you're going to find diversity. No matter where you live, you're going to find diversity. Even if the race or ethnicity is the same, you're going to find gender, generations, beliefs, faith-based. Diversity is simply that. It has nothing to do with liking the person, respecting the person, valuing someone different. Inclusion is then what are you doing that can make someone feel like they are included? In other words, you haven't forgot about them. What we were just talking about, just sharing the screen, sharing the time, although it's a little bit more than that, but that's what being included. But then we added recently in the last few years, the term equity is quite popular now because just to be included is not necessarily how I might want to be included in the conversation, maybe different from you. We have to have that difference to be equitably comfortable. That's why equity becomes so important. Real recently, you've heard the term belonging, and that is, what is it that the environment, the context, both parties, all parties are doing to make someone really feel like they belong there. That's a little bit more even than inclusion. There's a popular little thing where you said diversity is being just invited to the dance and inclusion is being asked to dance, but they added on belonging is having the playlist, having your playlist shared. That's important when you think about that. And so that is—

let me, let me just interrupt you. In that scenario, would you say that the person who's asked to dance, if they want to dance, does that fall under belonging because they feel comfortable?

Yes, yes, yes, they feel comfortable. Now, I think I can dance, although for the family and people who know me, that's debatable. So we know that all Black people can't dance, but nevertheless, I like to get out there and have fun. So if I go to a dance, if Ernie invites me to a dance and he takes my hand to dance, and then the polka is—

I love what you just said, invites you and takes your hand.

And takes my hand. But then if the polka music starts playing or the chicken dance, that's something that does not going to make me feel like I belong as much because now I'm going to feel nothing but awkward.

Right. Me too, by the way.

I get out there and have fun. That's different. But making someone really feel— and that's a really— once you feel like you belong, you know you're there. It's hard to just put in words because it has so much context-driven, you know, it is so much. You mentioned you were married and you're married to an Italian. The first time you may have gone to a family dinner, Thanksgiving or something, at your husband's family, or at that time maybe he was a, a boyfriend, as we— in fact, I still use that term— whether you felt that you were included, but did you feel like you belonged? You have to—

I actually, I, I, I, I did, because ironically where I grew up was in an Italian neighborhood.

So you were great, and you like that. I, I've been married a long time to my husband Kenny, and I love my in-laws. But it took a while for me to feel like I belong, not because they didn't do anything necessarily, but they would tell the inside jokes. They had siblings, 6 siblings, and I didn't like that. And so there was a dance that we had to do to where they made me feel like I could get in the conversation. And I knew the little acronyms, little fun things, little desserts, things that I didn't know about being in that family till now. I still don't know probably some of it.

I like where you're going with this because the sense of belonging. Now, the sense of belonging, whose responsibility is it?

It's both. The reason why I say both is because Ernie is not going to be able to guess what's going on in my mind. But if he's made me feel comfortable, if you allow me to use that, that I can ask a question, I can make a comment, I can disagree, I can agree, then that's how we both— in a perfect world, we both are going to be able to do that. If the chicken dance music goes on and I say, I don't like that, I don't know how to dance to that, then they may change it or they may say, Cheryl, this is really popular here in my culture this time, enjoy it. Then I'm going to like my curiosity, I'll get in there and do it.

Yes.

How would you respond though?

It's a question for me?

Yes.

Okay, chicken dance.

Wow. We don't talk about the chicken dance in our book, but nevertheless.

I would say I'd be a heck of a lot more comfortable with my granddaughters doing that than I would in a public setting, but that's, um, a typical introvert, uh, kind of personality.

Okay, now, now we're moving into introvert versus extrovert. I love it because that's a whole different layer that you put on, you know. I might be willing to do the chicken dance, but maybe I'll do it at home instead of in public.

That's it.

Okay, so I want to ask Ernie now, what are some of the mistakes that you made that we can learn from?

Golly. Which era? You want early era or more recent era or?

Let's take a couple from each. All right.

Well, one that comes to mind is within our own company, we were having a succession planning discussion about who should take on a key role in Asia Pacific. And we had a couple of candidates that were in front of us, both real well-qualified, and a lot of discussion, debate back and forth on our management team about which it might be. And then partway through the discussion, someone said, what about— and I'll make up a name here because she'll know who she is anyway— Jennifer. What about Jennifer? And I had the— let's see, I was trying to do the right thing. And I said, well, she's just come back from maternity leave. This role is going to involve a ton of travel and back and forth. It's going to be a really, really excruciating, difficult job. And so maybe we ought to give her a shot at this, you know, a year from now or 2 years from now. And of course, the fundamental mistake I made was I didn't ask Jennifer. And turns out she made it really clear later that she had relatives living nearby and she was able and willing to travel. Her husband's job was relatively flexible. And so I made the fundamental mistake of not asking her, of assuming from good intentions, I thought, but turned out to be a really bad idea. And I've reflected on this. In fact, now in Indeed, we're trying to help many companies with gender advancement in Asia-Pacific overall. And this is a key issue because in Asia-Pacific, women tend to be underrepresented in management roles relative to the rest of the world. Going back to the fact that you need all kinds, including men and women involved in these discussions, guess who's making a lot of the decisions about who goes into management? Well, it's men. Sometimes we're not fully informed. In fact, you might even say clueless about—

I was like, oh, that's a nice way of putting it. Not fully informed. OK.

And not only that, but— and I've been convinced by our own research. So we have this GlobeSmart profile that you may be familiar with. A lot of companies use it. We've had over 3 million users now. We've got 40,000 data points from Asia-Pacific. And what it shows, for instance, is that women are slightly more risk-averse overall on average than men. And you can argue about the reasons for that. There's a great HBR article that says, well, of course, women are more risk-averse because they're scrutinized more carefully when they're in management roles. Or maybe it's because it's more common for them to be going into roles like finance or human resources where being cautious, being certainty-oriented is a really important part of that role.

Right.

But for the men and predominantly male groups that are making these succession planning decisions, Thinking about this risk-certainty spectrum and realizing that we have to not have a narrow box and be saying to be risk-averse is good, or rather to be a risk-taker is good, a calculated risk-taker is good, and that's one of our competencies. We have to open the box and say we need some risk, we need some certainty, we need both, and we need them integrated together. And therefore, how can we make sure that we're asking women and we're also being fair in a broader sense when we're making these key succession planning decisions because we can train women all day and women are often trained for leadership development programs in Asia Pacific, but we don't see that moving the needle. And so what my— and by the way, our company is 2/3 women, so I really had to take this to heart. Our management team as well. I'm learning a lot thanks to my female colleagues. I think that's why we have to look at inclusion from a big picture perspective and involve men and women and people of all different colors and ethnicities because we're not going to open the box if we're looking at it through too narrow a perspective or saying, this is what a good leader looks like. Let's go with this person because they look a little bit more like what our prior image of a terrific leader might have been.

I'm doing a lot of work in courage right now, the courage to lead. My philosophy is that the courage to lead starts with the courage to self-examine. And to look at what is it that you need to support you in making the next great leap. And I love the fact that your company is almost predominantly women. That takes courage.

Well, they happen to be really good.

Yeah, well, still, still. And that's the point, though. A lot of companies, even though women or different genders or whatever, they don't have the courage to invite the brilliance of other minds to join the conversation. Right. So, Cheryl, I want to ask you, especially since you've been through the Amazon— that's just insane to me. Thinking back, what was the greatest time that you needed courage and how did it turn out? What did you use?

The greatest time— that's actually a very easy one. I was living— I was in the jungle. This was during the 2, 3 years that I was actually living there, collecting my— doing my research. And there's one tribe that's called— that's probably more remote than others. And this particular tribe doesn't allow, um, uh, people that aren't very dark in there, because if you aren't very dark, they assume you've got white in you. And they call it the witiman. And if you have white in you, that means you could be bringing them danger, because this is still coming over from the slaves, you know, like that, from the Dutch colonists and the slave masters or whatever. So I wanted to go— Daomei is the name of the, uh, of the tribe. So I wanted to go up. So I was on the river, you know, I'd gone— I got permission from the Paramount Chief and all the folks that you need to go through in order to go to these villages. So I'm on the river to go to Daomei, and I brought the appropriate gifts you do for exchange. And I had to stay at the, uh, river's edge while the captain came down to the river's edge, uh, to, um, to, to basically look me over to see if I was worthy to go into their village. I happened to carry— my father was brown complect. My father was more brown, my mother was more fair. I used to have to carry a picture of my father so I could show to them that I had African in me. And so they ended up to be— make a long story short, it's interesting, they never let me in their village. But the paramount chief— I mean, excuse me, the chief from that, not the paramount, the chief from that village came to me at the edge of the river, and we conducted— I was— he allowed me to conduct an interview there with— through my interpreter, whatever. And, um, because— so it took courage for me. First of all, fear, because, you know, I've also was told that if they don't like you or if they think you're there to bring them harm, then the land— then the law of the jungle takes over, you know, like that. So they I didn't feel that I was going to be hurt because I had too many people that were with me, but it took courage for me to really want to continue the interview. I have since gone back numerous times to, to, to the Amazon for follow-up research, and I've talked with the same captains. I still have not gone into their village because to this day, 2022, if you're not a certain complexion, they won't let you in. So it took me courage to still want to continue to And I'll still go back, God willing. I'll go this year, I'll go back there. And if I can't, I'm going to attempt again. Not because it's— not because I'm trying to get in to make a— make some weird point, because I really want to know what is it about this tribe, this culture, that we can learn from them, and perhaps they can learn from us to, to, to, to make them do it. So because they're not— but by them not letting me or someone like me do that, malaria treatments and now the COVID treatments. All these things that normally people can bring into the tribe can't happen because they're not letting you in unless they train, of course, their own people. Then their own people, of course, can go in to do it. So that to me took some courage for the chiefs that believed in me to give me permission to go into this area.

Wow. That is an amazing story. And Scary.

I mean, it is. There's a Dahomey, spelled D-A-H-O-M-E-Y. There's a Dahomey tribe in Africa that I'm told— I didn't get it, haven't gotten there yet, even though I've been to Africa many times— that I'm told is very similar. They're just very remote.

Wow.

What made you decide that you wanted to examine these 2 Quickly, you know what it was, CB, is, um, I really wanted to know what was it about being African that makes us think, feel, and do differently from others, as well as the same. Because if you go to many places, like if you go on a safari, or if you go to certain— you have a Hilton where you can stay, you have newspapers. You know, I went a couple places in Africa and they had the, uh, you know, the U.S. News and World Report and Ebony magazines. And like, so, so how much— so how much is, is African? So I figured I was going to go on to a very remote place. So when I was doing my, uh, my, um, investigation into that, I went to Florida State for my PhD. And I was, um, one of the, the then— he's rest in peace, um, Dr. Jones. He had been studying this particular remote tribe, um, but he hadn't gone down there before but a couple of times. So he was able to first say Cheryl, you need to study those. And by then they were referred to as the Bush Negroes. Now that sounds very offensive, obviously, for here, but they go bush because of the beautiful forest and the negro, you know, like that, the beauty of the dark skin. Uh, the tribal name, of course, is Saramaka, and they have other tribal names for sure. And I was able to visit all 6 tribes. So I wanted to go to a place where I can— where it wouldn't have been as influenced by other outside cultures. And in 1993, the first time I landed in the middle of the jungle, it was— I was the first person most of the places that looked like me. First of all, an outsider. And then second, a person that they thought I was mixed race or whatever, you know, like that. But to this day, I have very good friends over there, very good friends over there.

And being of mixed race was also offensive to them?

It's not offensive, it's just, can they trust me? It's all about us because, you know, that's what it was about. And once they realized they could trust— because, you know, in my world I would explain to them, you know, it's not about the color of your skin today, you know, because people come packaged and believe and do things different ways, you know, like that. So it's not just your skin color that determines someone's trustworthiness or— Sure. Yeah.

Fascinating.

Wow.

Okay, Ernie, tell us another time where you could have done something differently, more recently.

Huh.

Well, you know, this book project, for instance, I could have done it. I could have gone off and tried to write it solo. I could have tried to undertake this sort of project with someone that I had known well for 20 years, but I had a chance to meet Cheryl, and it occurred to me that wouldn't it be better— I mean, you think of all the things that are wrong in the world and all the things that are wrong in our own country, and crazy talk of civil war, and, and, um, people just have no idea what sort of apocalyptic event a civil war would be, and yet they bandy it about, you know, as if it's a realistic possibility. And, and so it felt like it would be a better partnership, uh, would be a better product if, if I would try to learn about Cheryl and her world and Her stories. And by the way, she's got great stories about her own personal life experience, even in the United States, and her family's extended experience. And, and to learn through that, what, what it— I'm not going to have the life experience of a Black person, obviously, but at least to learn vicariously about that. And then to try to, to, to match it with my own experience living abroad in various different places, and to think about What's common and what's not common, and how can we put it all together in a way that's useful for people? And so I think it would have been a big mistake to try to go off and do this project in another way. And I'm just so happy that Cheryl and I have been able to partner on this because I feel like I've learned a lot from her. And, you know, hopefully the feeling has been mutual.

Absolutely mutual.

Okay, tell me about a time when you took courage to a different level and what were the results?

All right. So in my very first job out of college, I thought I was destined for a political career. I checked all the boxes. as far as schools and education and contacts and so on. I was working in a job for a public interest group related to the legislature here in California in Sacramento with a guy who was working on the Bottle Bill. I think he's long gone, so I won't disparage his memory, but he was working on a great recycling bill. This is in the days before recycling was happening, and we were trying to make it happen. And so I believed in the cause, but this state senator was a really unpleasant and egotistical individual. And I thought, my goodness, he's really getting in his own way. And how about me? Am I getting in my own way? And so I decided at that point to step off that kind of track of rising upward in the world and perhaps going into politics and that, that direction in life to become a Buddhist monk. And so I did that for 5 long, really good, rich years. Some of my best friends are Buddhists.

Wow.

Spent time in a monastic setting, both in the United States and also in Japan. You know, it's really cold in the morning, and it's really— they don't heat the the monastery when the snow is falling and you're sitting there looking at the wall, or depending on the tradition, sometimes you're staring at the wall or you're staring out. And so I spent a lot of time staring. And what you have to go through is a lot of movies about yourself. And many of them are bad movies, you know, or really boring movies or unpleasant movies. And so you get used to both having a sense of perspective on yourself and your own folly. You know, we call it greed, hate, and delusion. Everybody's got that, and you realize you've got your own particular admixture of it. But then also you have this willingness to have your mind blown in a good way. So, so once you can clear away some of the clutter— one of the, one of the jokes about Buddhism is behind the screen in back of you, there's a huge pile of junk. And it doesn't happen to be the case for this particular screen because I cleaned it. But we've all got that. And so the question then is, how can you invite the unexpected? How can you see what you never saw or wouldn't have seen before? So for instance, in the process of doing the research for this book, I learned that in Africa, there's more genetic diversity than between Europe and China. So think about that for a minute. We assume in this country that we know what it means to be Black or it means to be white. But, but actually, there's this incredible ethnic diversity in Africa— 2,000 languages, 3,000+ ethnic groups. And more genetic diversity, not to mention cultural diversity, than between Europe and China. In fact, there was historically more interaction between East and West across Asia to Europe than within many parts of Africa because of the geographical separation. And Africa is a really big place. And so that's a fascinating, mind-blowing statistic. And it gets you thinking about, well, even within the Black community and even within the Black community in the US. And by the way, another related experience in graduate school, I went and taught Japanese at Kenwood High School on the South Side of Chicago, a predominantly Black classroom. So that took some courage. I didn't realize until later how much courage was involved.

I do want to say to you that, listen, I'm listening to you and being a courage specialist that I need to open up the definition of courage to include a little bit of insanity.

You're welcome.

Between the two of you, oh my goodness, it defines courage in a different way altogether. Hey, I want to ask you— gosh, we're running out of time, but I wanted to dive more, so you just have to come back. I want to dive more into the book, but I want you to please give us, give us your greatest, each of you, your greatest takeaway in putting this book together for us.

My greatest takeaway is there really are far more similarities along what people value and how people want to be respected. Now, the route to do that is very different, but at the end of that is people just want to be— they want a sense of family and safety and healthiness. What I found when we look into this, when we examine particularly the 3 global cultures and Mandeep, is that's what it's about. If we simply learn how to how to show that because you can't see trust. I have to show it to you. You can't see it in my mind. To me, that was probably some of the best highlights, I would think. It's lots of stories. Then actually, this is also used as a textbook in some universities like that because it has an academic feel to it as well. Both.

I love what you just said. I never thought about that, that is that you have to see trust. Yeah, that's very powerful. Yeah, very powerful, you know. Um, and the combination of valued and trust and be respected. Uh, a dear friend of ours, of Ernie's and mine, I, I— you may know her too, Mercedes Martin.

Yeah, yes, I know Mercedes.

Yeah, her— one of her relatives is a member of the Proud Board. So imagine Thanksgiving dinner there. And for our audience, Mercedes is a Black Cuban. And so she was talking to us about her opportunity to interview her cousin who's part of the Proud Boys. And she said to me, you know— said to us, it occurred to me that they are no different than the rest of us. Fundamentally, the reason why they exist is to be heard, respected, and valued. And I thought, wow, that's a statement and a half. But when you stop and think about it, isn't it true that that's what everybody wants, is to be heard? It doesn't mean that you have to agree with a person. It means that you listen and have some comfortable dialogue where both parties can learn. Ernie, what is the most valuable or the most impactful thing that you learned writing this book?

Well, in a way, it reaffirmed my sense of mission, and I think what our— the core purpose of our organization is self-understanding, really trying to understand the other person, and then bridge building in between. I think that mission is valuable for all of us and each of us can do that in different ways. You do it through your interviews, I'm sure quite well, and that's an outcome of it. But if you look across the world, you can find in any society, there are people who are marginalized for various reasons, most of them incomprehensible to outsiders. But we have our own marginalization issues here in the US. But if you look through a local lens, in Nigeria, it's ethnicity, it's religion. In India, it's caste, it's gender. And if we have the courage and the integrity and the open-mindedness, the willingness to have our own minds blown, goes back all that sitting around that I did. But if you have that willingness to look, you can find anywhere there are marginalized folks and there's a way if you tap into local institutions and local people of good heart and good spirit that you can find ways to be more inclusive in any environment in local terms, while still having a global umbrella and a global purpose or mission to your efforts. It both gives me heart to know that that mission can be shared, and at the same time, it's somewhat daunting to know that we really have to keep our minds open and to learn and not to assume going into another environment, even the UK is different because— the mix of minorities is different. You have Blacks primarily from the Caribbean and a larger Asian minority that are immigrants, came in after World War II and the labor shortage. And so the motto for many minorities within the UK is, we are here because you were there. You were colonists. You came to our country and then you invited us back. And so we're here because you were there. And so that's similar, even the UK is similar but different from the US because they don't have the long history of slavery that we do, this terrible institution of slavery that we do in the US. And so there are areas of overlap and yet I think it's a noble mission to try to figure out what is marginalization in this context and what can we do about it in a way that has real integrity of seeing things through a local lens.

What about people— this is for both of you— what about people that are afraid of losing their identity by accepting others? How can we help them? I mean, is it, is it a truism that they lose their identity?

You know, um, Theory would say you don't lose your identity. You can build upon it because you are who you are and who you choose to identify as. There's 2 ways we have identities. We have acquired and we have given. The given identities are what you're born with. You can't really do much about that. Your acquired identities is if you're a Democrat or Republican or independent, if you're an academic or not. So, so in the, in the, in the, uh, acquired ones, it can shift and change. I mean, and it will over time because culture is dynamic. And the person Cheryl was back in 1950s, '60s, '70s hopefully is not the Cheryl of 2022 because life has given me experiences. So your— my identity, how I identify, has only been enhanced. Now, I was really fortunate growing up with a family that was very open and very mind— very open-minded, very much so, very inclusive. They didn't know those words, of course, uh, so I didn't have to struggle with that. But I've had friends who've said, yo, my father or mother did very racist things, did very sexist things, but now here we are in 2022 and I've realized that that's not the right way to go.

So, um, Cheryl, and those people that you're talking about, do they feel a loss of self?

Some might, but that would be such a personal decision. It's not, in my opinion, this is an opinion now, someone that feels that they are losing their sense of self and being white, being part of the majority, being part of the power configuration, having privilege that you hear us talk a lot. If that's how they're feeling, that's a very personal thing. I would simply say to that individual, be curious, open-minded. I would try to somehow, if there was a curiosity pill I could give them, I would, because to just see, to be open-minded, because if they're not going to change their mindset, then it's not much another individual can do. It's like someone who's an alcoholic and addictive, If they don't recognize that they've got a problem, it's not going to really help. That's my— and it's real personal to me though, so that's a really good question and thanks for asking because I work a lot with personal and social identities. That's my take. I want to make sure Ernie though can give his take. I apologize for monopolizing.

You got time, CB?

Oh yeah.

Well, we have a lot of dialogue even in our political discussions in this country about the dynamic between fear and hope. If you think of what those 2 emotions do to us, fear makes us clench and hold on and attach and think we're going to lose something. Hope makes us— it's tied into that curiosity that Cheryl was talking about and an openness, a willingness to say, well, my identity, so what? It might expand and it might be better if I learn something new. We've got a lot of fancy words in the corporate world like growth mindset, for instance, that are linked to hope and are linked to saying we can learn and become better people. It's infectious. If you can demonstrate that curiosity yourself or If we can do it with the 3 of us, then others are going to say, well, what if I'm going into India or China and I'm trying to develop a DEI effort? How can I link that with the hope, the aspirations of the people who are in that location, who are on that site? Then you get into a growth mindset, a more expansive mode. I think all kinds of things, good things can happen and you can find Also unexpected similarities that you just never, never would have dreamed were there. So, so I think it's a matter of your identity can be something that you cling to, especially if you feel threatened, or it can be something that you're, you're open to expanding. And, you know, there's some wonderful discussions of how even in prison, a dialogue between a Black prisoner and a white prisoner can result in an awakening for both of them about these clenched views that they'd had for so long that now they're released and have a new lease on life themselves, even from behind prison bars.

So I want to ask both of you this: does it mean If you're in conversation with somebody, you mentioned open to expanding. Does open to expanding mean agreement?

You want to go first, Ernie? I always go first, or I can.

See, I saved the tough questions to the end.

That's fine.

You want me to go or would you prefer to go? Either way is fine.

No.

All right. Well, agreement, that's boring. If we agree on everything, then that borders on groupthink. One of the big questions, why DEI? Sheryl mentioned that social justice is a key reason and I think we have some some towering examples even in our own country, in our own society, in our own experience. But there's also innovation out there. And how can your team possibly innovate if you've got groupthink going on? There's that famous Asch experiment from 50 years ago, and people have raised questions about it and so on. But if it's a so-called vision experiment and 3 other people say that this bar is visibly shorter or longer than the other bar, that actually 3/4 of the people who go through the experiment at least once and a third who go through consistently say they agree with the majority, even though their eyes are telling them that the other 3 people are wrong, right? And so how can you possibly innovate if you're involved in this groupthink and you're not able to— what another of your guests on psychological safety, Tim— anyway—

Dr. Clark.

Tim Clark, that's right. The wonderful book on psychological safety calls challenging the status quo. How can you possibly challenge the status quo if if you all agree with each other. So even my, by the way, white male business partner, we're as different as day and night. We disagree constantly. And that's what I value in him is he'll tell me that I'm full of it and that I'm wrong. And how could you possibly think this way? And I'll do the same back. And that's the spark. That's the gist of where you start. Now, of course, Of course, you eventually need to not only diverge, but you got to converge and align and have priorities and budgets and get stuff done. But I think the spark of creativity comes from disagreement. So who would not want to do that?

Yeah, I think the whole thing about losing one's identity comes from a fear that you have to agree. Cheryl, what say you about this?

I was gonna— first of all, I completely agree with what Ernie was gonna say, which is scary. I know I don't always agree with Ernie, and he doesn't always agree with me. But, um, you know, I seek difference and enjoy and embrace disagreement, not conflict. I'm actually conflict avoidance. I'm not afraid of it, but, you know, that's a little— that's different. Because I have a heightened level of curiosity, and it's only through peeling back what we're disagreeing on that I can learn. Now, if it's the emotional thing, then that's emotional. I just kind of— that people are entitled, obviously, to their emotions. But it's— but if it's a way people are viewing something, understanding something, you know, interpreting something, and it's different from how I've done— I mean, I see it out. I think it's wonderful. Matter of fact, I've even said things, well, don't just agree with me, what do you think? Because I seek it. That's very much so what I would do. I'll pause it at that. I was going to mention there is a wonderful little theory called Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. On this grid, it came to us from Dr. Bennett, It says to us that integration is one of the things we do after we accept someone's difference. We need to be able to integrate it to our own lives. Once I accept you disagree, agree, whatever, how do I then take what I've learned from you that was wrapped in disagreement to be part of— now I know these things.

I love that. Yeah. Hey, we've got a question for Jerome Saunders. The motivation for energizing DEIB for the corporate world is often increased profits. Oh, I want to talk about that.

Yes.

And expanding markets, not the evolution of humanity. Is there not a disconnect between what we are learning in corporate life and what we are able to apply to changing human behavior in the larger society. I totally agree, Jerome. That, I think, is a slippery slope. I interviewed— God, her name is escaping me. She's with Bank of America. She made her case for DEI on profits, and it made, it made absolute sense. But the question I think is, it depends on the environment, right? Whatever way you can get this to work that's lawful, um, seems to be the way that works best, if that makes sense. But there is still the prevailing question of Do most corporations, will they only move the needle if it's related to profits and earnings?

I'll take a stab at that first. Many will. Many look at this as the bottom line, is it going to move the money? Back in the olden days of affirmative action, I call it the olden days, when people would say, well, I'll hire who I need to hire because I've got a federal contract. That was so not the right reason to do any of that. You hire based on competence, Let's see. We have more today, more quantitative studies that we know connect to productivity, and we know productivity connects to making money. Engagement studies, we can call them like that. That's helpful. One of my clients is sports entertainment. I have a big major sports entertainment team here. If I were to call the name, I'll be mindful and not. That makes a ton of money for other investments and other things. But the senior leadership, who I just have so much respect for, made the decision, drew the line in the sand after the George Floyd murder and said, we're going to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Now granted, they have fans coming into the location and they have all this and that. But this is a company that didn't have to do this, but decided to put the humane side to it over the profit side. I have other clients that's done that too, major clients. I have a feeling, and maybe this is my want, Jerome, that the more people connect and see where people really is your biggest asset, we've talked about it. but really is your biggest asset, I think the more they're going to recognize that having a diverse, having an inclusive, having an equitable, making people feel like they belong is important. The last thing I'll say before that is, if you look at just the numbers, white people aren't having babies in Europe. Black people and Asians and Native Americans are having— not Native Americans much— are having babies. If you look at just studies of who's being born, you're like that I have a little presentation I've done, you're going to have to reach out to people who are across the spectrum of what we look like just to be able to have hiring people. Ernie.

Well, I don't think it's an either/or. I think it's a both/and. I'm mindful of one of the many stories that Sheryl shared from her own experience. She has a A relative who was appointed to finally get an office on the top floor of the building in the executive suite and was in there kind of a— maybe a little bit like me, a little bit sparse in terms of decoration. She finally helped him get a houseplant in there because she was appalled. But he was sitting at his desk and people were going by back and forth on the the elevator and nobody, you know, he thought, wow, it's kind of great. I've been appointed to this new role. Why is nobody stepping in to say hello? Then he talks to them later and it turns out that they had assumed that he was from IT, that he was in there setting up the office for the person who would look like a real executive. And would, you know, eventually come to occupy that place. What does that story tell us? Is that social justice? Is that bottom line? Well, it's both. If you have a really talented individual who's maybe got a little bit of imposter syndrome anyway, what am I doing here? Is it okay for me to be here? This is after all this floor that I haven't spent a whole lot of time on and all these highbrow folks around me. do I belong here? If that's reinforced by the conduct of people who have this confirmation bias of, well, it doesn't look like what we think of as an executive and therefore is probably not, and so why should I say hello? Just the IT guy. Sorry to the whole IT profession about that. Another mistake already. If we want to leverage the talent that we have in the organization, both because it's the right thing to do, Also because we want to have the right people in the executive team, then DEI is absolutely necessary to retell that story and to say, well, the CEO actually was gone that week but came back from a business trip and said, this is our new executive and I want you to know how capable he is and what his record is and what a great part of the team he is. Cheryl, do you want to share who this person was?

Yes, I'll be more than— actually, it's my son. My son is a veterinarian surgeon and a research scientist. He has over 8, 9 patents and he's gotten multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grants and he's been doing real well. I'm so proud of him. He too is on the introverted side, but nevertheless, he's really just amazing. To this day— now that took about a year or so ago, it was right before COVID— to this day, I was talking to him and his plant is still living. He's got his one plant, but people will get off the elevator and look and it's like, it's like they don't know that he's supposed to be in this office. Is he there doing something else? Because he's in the lab a lot, obviously, and in surgery. So yeah, it's, um, they're getting used to him though. He's obviously getting invited to the things. And it used to be— I don't know if they're doing this now— but anytime there was a brochure that needed to be made, they would call him up, hey, doctor. But I know, and he got it. He's a sweet guy, you know, he got it.

Well, I am, I'm really glad to know this part about you because I have a little 4-legged son.

Oh yes, yes.

Good to know, good to have connections.

You know, we have connections. Exactly. Yeah, it's the heart. So the heart—

Oh my God, talk about synchronicity! We were just told that London has a heart murmur.

So, uh, you've got my number.

You can— Yes, yes, we'll talk after the show. Um, so I, I am still having trouble with the prophets, as Jerome does. You know, Sandra Quint was the person I was thinking of. I could see where it's important to be able to say to your board and to your customers that you're solvent and you're doing well. And to make the argument that this is the right thing to do through profits. But somehow in my mind, it still clouds the overall intent. of DE&I. And I'm reminded of— several things floated through my head just now. I'm reminded of now in this day and age, you know, my husband and I sit and we're watching TV and we're saying, there's an awful lot of commercials with people of color. When did this start?

Right.

And, and we go back to— it's my husband's argument is, oh, it always happened. And I said, oh, hell no, no, no, it didn't. Um, and so I said, so let me calculate, because I used to be in marketing, between the killing of Floyd and what we're seeing now.

Mm-hmm.

And how long it takes to change a commercial, to figure out when they started working on this shift. Right? And there is a parallel between this. And it's almost like companies decided, well, if they can't do anything— and I know I'm going to get killed for this statement— they can't do as much as they'd like internally, let's at least have a presence of DE&I. And so my husband said, But what happened to the white people? And I said, now, come on, they're still there. But now you're seeing more of a balance, right? And we also took note that in the transgender and the LGBTQ space, we're seeing more people in that category. So what I'm seeing is commercial. We know, those of us that are in marketing, that equals big, big dollars, especially advertising on TV, that they're seeing that there is a positive investment in this, either from a social perspective or through their bottom line. Now, it's an anthropology question.

Dr. Cheryl.

But I'm curious to know if you're seeing what we're seeing, this increase.

I don't have any statistics or facts at my fingertips, but just as a consumer and someone who I would say, yes, absolutely, I know that it is a specific Within the US, there is a specific requirement for some to get federal contracts and other things to have an inclusive vision, and I mean, not vision, an inclusive marketing and so forth and so on. That's just what I— and I too have been the same way with you. I've been noticing that when I was working for my first 20 years in HR, I was primarily in entertainment. entertainment industry. And some of the television stations then were really wanting to say— there was a big fight for pushing for having anchors and reporters in the field that reflected the communities of which they served.

Wow.

And now you see it all the time, which is phenomenal. It's fantastic. I love it. So because it makes sense to do that. So when we're sitting watching television, we want to see an array of people who we, who we see every day.

So, you know, I have to interrupt you because I remember, I remember a specific incident where a person of color— I can't remember if it was NBC, it was in New York— was on the show and she decided to let her hair grow naturally and she was terminated. So that— this is the beginning. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. So, so yeah, you know, like that, it's, uh, I've noticed it just kind of just walking through that it did you— it's vacations, you know, marketing, uh, hotels, uh, all that stuff. I mean, how can we— how can I decide to spend my money and put my money places when the product or service is not used by anybody that looks like me?

Well, you know, Jeep made that mistake during the Super Bowl commercial.

Yes.

When they had Bruce Springsteen, and I was one who really talked about it a lot, talking about coming together of America. And there was no person of color in that entire commercial. And I said, what? What are we talking about here? You know, but I still— I think it's still interesting that you can put people of color in commercials and you can put them in executive seats. I would like to see the boards change.

Yeah.

I would love to sit on a for-profit board because I'm so tired of seeing the same people. You may have one person of color, and that person of color has their pick of for-profit boards, right? So we're still not accomplishing the absolute goal. And I'm hoping your book I'm hoping that my coming out and speaking about this— let's see more people of color sit on for-profit boards. Why is it that we only sit on not-for-profit boards? Let's share the wealth. Let's share the knowledge. And I don't care if it's in that order or the flip order of that. Ernie, you have a comment on this? I could see you're thinking deeply.

Well, doing my best. So, so 2 things. One is that I think tokenism eventually catches up with you if, if you don't have real sincere sponsorship at the executive level for your DEI initiative. And, you know, there are people with more interest and less interest and so on and so forth. But if you don't have a real champion and you're checking boxes up and down the line and you're primarily involved in risk mitigation, the more that you display yourself publicly as a DEI champion, in a way, the more people are likely to hold you to it and the higher your risk turns out to be. I think that the intent and the social justice component needs to go along with what you say that you're doing. And it's maybe even better to understate rather than to overstate— to understate and overdeliver rather than to overstate and underdeliver, right?

Yes.

And then the second is I had my global Spidey sense tingling a little bit while we were having this last phase of the discussion. And I just wanted to add that a common strategy and a natural strategy of of many US-based DEI folks is to say it's about representation and particularly representation around race. When we go abroad, if we go to Europe, if we go to Asia-Pacific, we should measure and think about what the benchmarks are and then think about how can we do better relative to the benchmarks. The first buzzsaw that you run into in France and Germany, you can't measure race. You can measure migration status, you can measure age, you can measure gender, but you can't even— you don't even have any metrics for race. Or in Asia-Pacific, you can measure age and gender in most places, but race doesn't make any sense in US categories because everybody in Asia, by the way, half of the world's population is Asian. Meaningful category is nationality. And then within each of those nationalities, there are multiple ethnicities, sometimes very much at odds with each other. And so if we then take this dilemma that you're looking at of the for-profit impulse and the social justice impulse, we just have to make sure— it's a good thing to be looking at. We just have to make sure we look at it through that local lens and think about Well, let's see in Singapore, what's the balance between— and by the way, we can't talk about race in Singapore either because they had race riots decades ago, which resulted in a lot of people getting killed. And so it's a taboo topic. But you can make advances in terms of gender. You can make advances in terms of LGBTQ in the workplace. So what's the local edge in terms of social justice, in terms of representation, and how can we get there and deal with that same dilemma in local terms? That's what I think we have to keep in front of us, even as we're passionate and committed to issues that are very important and very local and very embedded in our own Yeah, and I also want to clarify something you said before about—

I'm paraphrasing— walking the talk or talking the walk. And so really what we're saying is, let's not just talk about it, let's demonstrate it. You know, you take a look at Google and you think, oh, it's technology and everybody's, you know, on the same page in terms of DEI. or other technology companies, and then you find out under the sheets, well, what's going on with the algorithms that don't support the true DEI space? We have a comment coming in from Australia from Kathy. She says, good morning from Australia. Early here, but great thinking to start the day. Lots of businesses here only just started thinking of how DEIB links to productivity and people feeling trust in the organization. You know what? It's not just in Australia, it's all over. This world is rethinking and we see it. This sounds like a weird switch, but we've seen evidence of this coming out of COVID with the Great Resignation. The Great Resignation is not just because people are thinking about, is this where I want to spend my day working? If this company doesn't believe or have the same values that I have, is this where I want to be? It's not just about how much money I'm making. And what you're seeing with the cross between the killing of Floyd and other pandemics is that people are saying, does this company represent my values? If my values are towards DEI, if my values are towards supporting the LGBTQ+ community, where's this company? And if this company is not walking the talk, I don't want to be here anymore. We've seen a switch from employer rule to employee rule by demonstrating what their beliefs are equaling the Great Resignation. Yes, Cheryl.

CB, Generational research that we can now call fact because it's been out there for a while tells us that the millennials and Gen Z is mandating it.

Yes.

They will not, for the most part, won't go work for a place that doesn't have some type of— I mean, obviously I can't say everybody, obviously, but that's huge. That's huge. What they're looking for is the diversity, the inclusion, all of that.

And with social media, it's real hard to hide if you're not supporting this, because people being terminated for supporting their beliefs in, in examining things like algorithms, it's going to fly out to the public faster than ever before. And the public is realizing we have more than ever before purchasing power. We have enough, if we hear enough about an organization, to literally take down an organization. That's scary. This cancel culture works in warp speed. I'm so glad that you've written this book as a guide to inclusion because there's so many organizations out there that need that. Again, I'm going to get on my soap opera here. We need to see people like myself and Cheryl in that board seat, in the for-profit board seat. With that, I'm going to drop the mic.

Thank you, CB.

It's been such a pleasure. We're way over time. In fact, we're late for another meeting, the 3 of us. But I've enjoyed this, and I want to, I want to invite you back seriously to discuss more of the meat of what we're talking about. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for having us, CB.

Thank you.

Very rich conversation, guys. I just want to flash this again. I'm not supposed to promote, so I'm just waving away the bugs in my house. Mosquitoes.

Thank you.

And the little fruit gnats from my growing my parsley and avocados inside with daylight. I'm just waving them away.

Thank you.

Thank you, CB.

So, okay, bye bugs. Bye everyone. Um, thank you so much. Tune in next week. Hey, remember to connect with me on LinkedIn to subscribe to my newsletter. The first one just came out. It's an interview with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. It's terrific. Listen to it, subscribe, and we'll be back next week. Thank you so much, Cheryl and Ernie. It's been a pleasure.

Bye.

Hold on, guys. Now I forgot to, um, ask Cheryl to stay on till I hit the button.