E4: We’re Already Invisible: Why Black Professionals Are Embracing The Great Resignation

But now I shine with your reflection on me. I'm getting back up on my feet. That you showed up.

Hey everybody, how are you? Happy Friday to all of you. Welcome to Inclusion Unscripted, our live LinkedIn program that we do every Friday at 2:00 PM. So I am so psyched to be back this week and We have an amazing topic. Yeah, so we're going to talk about that topic in a second. And I want to just sort of welcome everybody back to the stream, back to the live. I'm so, so psyched that you're here. So let me tell you a little bit about Inclusion Unscripted. We are— a live show. Have you ever thought of a discussion you want to have around diversity and inclusion, around women's leadership development, around career advancement, around all the ways that we include everybody in the workforce, and there's stuff that you wanted to say and you couldn't say it? You couldn't say those honest, honest discussions. That's what Inclusion Unscripted is. There is no script. There's nothing that I'm pulling out of a roadmap that's written down. I'm coming to you with Inclusion Unscripted just to give you the raw information, unfiltered. And I'm going to often say things that people don't like. That's not why we're here. This is unscripted. So Inclusion Unscripted is sponsored by the Inclusion Learning Lab, and I am the founder of the Inclusion Learning Lab. And so what the Inclusion Learning Lab is, it's a place for diversity and those of us doing the work of DE&I and HR and talent management, talent development to come together in a safe space to learn and grow together. We're launching our online community in a couple of days, and I will be so psyched next week to bring that to you and showcase that online community to everybody. So welcome and thank you for joining me today. So today's show, and if you haven't watched our prior episodes, um, our episodes have been pretty robust over the last couple weeks, and this is episode 4, um, of this, and I'm committed to stay with, uh, these live events on Friday at 2 PM. This week we're talking about being invisible. And I'm coming at this as a Black woman who has been seen as invisible, not only in my career, but in my business, and how I fought to be visible. But what I'm really gonna talk about and focus on today is the invisibility of Black professionals and how maybe we need to start embracing The Great Resignation, you know. Um, so this, this time, this, uh, COVID, post-COVID, in COVID, wherever we are in the COVID process, um, we are basically, um, in a place where people are reevaluating why they're doing what they're doing. People are reevaluating. They're reevaluating their purpose. They're reevaluating they are worth. They're reevaluating the job. And here's what I know. I was telling a good friend a couple days ago. Here's what I know. People went home from your organization. People went home. They left you during COVID You sent them home to work from home. And for the first time, people have experienced what it's like to not be in your high-stressed work environment. And so what we're calling the Great Resignation is really your employees just taking a breath for the first time in their life. They're probably breathing without the stressors associated with being in your organization, working for you. And so now that they're at home, they're thinking about, do I want to come back to that? So when we dial them up and say, you know, we're going back into the office and you suddenly realize that there's gonna be a bunch of people who walk out the door or they're gonna be looking for jobs or they are resigning left and right and center, we then say to ourselves, well, why are they all leaving? And none of these organizations, none of you folks want to take a deep look at yourself and how you contributed to the Great Resignation. People didn't just get up and resign. They didn't just get up and resign. People have been wanting to leave your dysfunctional junctions for years, but they never had the courage. But here's what happened during COVID COVID taught people that, wait a minute, maybe my life is worth more than this job. Maybe my purpose in life is not to just work. Maybe the reason why I'm in this work world is not to deal with dysfunctional leaders. Maybe I'm in this work world to enjoy myself, to feel that I'm contributing, to don't feel that the manager is micromanaging me, to feel that I'm a valued member of the team. And so Here we have it, people walking out the door. HR is in a knot. All of you, my HR peeps out there, you're all in a knot because people are leaving. You're in a knot because you've put out job ads, you've put out requisitions, and people aren't applying for your jobs. And people are using Glassdoor to rag on your company. But guess what? Everything they're saying might very well be true. It might very well be true. So towards the end of today's broadcast, I'm going to talk about what we need to do different as HR professionals to support the Great Resignation by turning it into the Great Retention, but also turning this into a DE&I strategy. We have to utilize the Great Resignation as a DE&I strategy. We have to. It's essential. We have to do this. This is the time to reevaluate it. But this portion of this presentation today is for all the women, all the Black women, all the brown women, all the women who are sitting in a desk, who've sat there for years being overlooked, asking for promotions, asking to be uplifted, asking to move forward, and not getting it. Not getting it. The women who have sat loyal to your company for years, and you have not been loyal to them. You've not appreciated them. You've not appreciated the Black and brown people that work for your organization. You don't appreciate us. We're invisible. We get crapped on every day. You don't really care about us. You don't care about our mental well-being. You don't care about how we exist. You don't give a rat's about us. Stop saying that you care about your Black and brown employees because you don't. By golly, I'm saying it. You don't give a rat's about us. Cause if you did, you would really address our psychological safety. You would address our psychological safety in your dysfunctional work environments. You don't care about us. You don't. You write great policies, you put out great statements, but the reality is You don't actually care. Because if I'm a Black woman or a Black man or a Hispanic woman or a Hispanic man or an Asian woman or an Asian man sitting in your workforce today, or a Native American woman or man sitting in your workforce today, and you've overlooked me over and over and over and over for a promotion, I've earned it. I've given you the time, the blood, the sweat, the tears. I've given you all of it, yet you find reasons to not respect my abilities. It shows that you don't care about me. And so what we are not understanding as HR professionals, here's what we're not getting. Here's what we're not getting, especially in the space that I work in, which is the insurance industry, especially in this space. What you're not getting is that we are tired and we are exhausted of fighting. Every single day, somebody reaches out to me after I do one of these events and they say, Margaret, can I have 30 minutes on your schedule? And this is what I'm going through. Here's what's happening to me. I've given this company my all. I've given my boss everything. I've done all the things I need to do. I've checked every box they've asked me to check. I've moved the bar. I've done everything. I've asked for guidance. I've asked for— I've gone to every course, every class. I've gotten every certification. Yet and still, they bring in somebody from outside and promote them into the role. And they tell me at that point that they made a decision for some reason. See, that is psychological abuse, ladies and gentlemen, in HR and leaders and talent folks. It's psychological abuse. It is abuse. You are abusing us every day. And so now your folks are walking out the door. The young people are walking out the door. They're tired. And somewhere in there, we're trying to write another policy or write a job description better without actually having the hard conversations with our managers. You promote people who should not be leaders. They were never meant to lead anything. If I put them on a farm with a bunch of animals, the animals would not follow them. That's who you got. We know this. We know it. And on top of that, you try to build women's leadership development programs, DE&I programs, early career programs, and all kinds of other things when the issue, the problem you're trying to solve is not me, it's your leaders. Why can't we just have an honest conversation? Around the fact that you haven't done a good enough job of training your leaders how to be leaders. All of us that are out here doing this guru kabuki dance, right? Stop doing the guru kabuki dance. Say what needs to be said. Say it. Be honest. Your employees are leaving you because they are exhausted. So we gave it a term, the Great Resignation, because it sounds sexy. Because, you know, HR people, we like to give things titles. But here's an example. I'm in— I work for an insurance company, or I work for an organization, or I'm in tech, or any of the things. And I'm on year 3 or 4 in the same position, in the same role, and nobody is thinking, wait a minute, Margaret might be ready to exit left. What are we doing to engage her not only in her career, in her growth, but in her personal development, but in her mental health? I could tell you the reason I quit and started my own company is because I couldn't take the psychological trauma of working for you guys. I couldn't take it anymore as a Black woman. I was raising my children, they were young, and I'm trying to show up as a good mother, as a good wife, and all I could show up as is exhausted, tired, mentally— just mentally drained so that I couldn't be an effective parent. Because of the trauma that I incurred working in organizations. Today I'm a consultant and I come into organizations and I try to speak the truth because I think everybody needs to hear the truth. You cannot build DE&I on top of dysfunction. You gotta fix the dysfunction before you build DE&I. We don't even say that to organizations. A lot of you doing the DE&I work don't want to have the honest conversation with the organizations. We got to be honest. We got to be truthful. You know, our life depends on us telling the truth, the honest truth. And as an organizational leader, it's up to you to hear the truth. Your people are leaving because they are exhausted. You gave them a break. They went home. They watched their friends die from COVID Every person in this country and globally knows someone who died from COVID whether they are a direct relative, a friend, a friend of a friend of a friend. Somebody can tell you the name of a person that died from COVID Right? Colin Powell just died from COVID Everybody who loved him as a person, admired him as a man, um, embraced his stature, now knows someone who died from COVID Every time someone dies from COVID your employees reevaluate themselves. They reevaluate why they're there. They reevaluate their purpose. And so as they reevaluate their purpose and they're saying, I don't want this crap no more. That's what your employees are saying. Your employees are having honest conversations with themselves, with their families. They're looking at their wellness. They're looking at their families and their kids. They're looking at the support system you're offering or not offering, and All of you, all of you leaders out here want to go back to business as usual. You want to go back and act like nothing happened in 2020. Get real. People have been emotionally tested on top of the emotional test that you put them through every day working for you. And now They're making the decision to say, my mental health matters. My mental health matters. They are reevaluating their purpose in life. They're reevaluating their contribution. They're reevaluating their why. They're reevaluating their what— what's important to me today. And they're reevaluating how you stomped on them for the last year, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9, 10. They're looking at that. They're looking at how much you have stomped on their growth, how much they've given you of their blood and sweat for the paycheck. They're looking at their financial prospect and saying, wait a minute, I've watched younger— for Black people, white people coming in and getting promoted. They're watching that. And so people have been evaluating themselves to say, hey, you know what, this job is not as important as they think it is. See, this is what— this is what you guys aren't getting. Your employees, especially the young people, especially the young people, right? I have a 28-year-old and a 36-year-old, okay? And I know that they're evaluating their give to this world, right? I talk to young folks, high schoolers, who look around and say, I've watched my parents go through this, I don't think I want to do that. And so what we are not understanding is that this— if we don't view COVID as a time to reflect on our internal failings, then we've missed an opportunity to correct the environment that we have in our organizations. This is a time to reflect, you know, reimagine and reconstitute what we're doing. It is a time to do that. So let me talk specifically to women for a second, and let me talk specifically to Black women. I'm talking to you guys, my peeps. I'm talking to you. A lot of you are taking a deep dive into your purpose. A lot of you are taking a deep dive into your why. Why am I here? What am I contributing to this scenario? What I wanna say to all of you is there's a caution around how you jump. I've seen a lot of people jumping from one organization to the next without doing a deep dive into their own why and their own purpose. Here's what I say to you. Everything that you're unhappy with right now in your career, you can recreate somewhere else. Number one. Number two, you have to get clear about what the next is gonna look like. The next doesn't necessarily mean going out the door. The next means, what do I need to ask for more boldly? Because if you can't ask for it where you are now, you're not going to ask for it where you're going. That's number one. But we have to understand something that I, I said to someone earlier today. And let me say this in the most, in the most clear way, the clear way, right? Here's, here's how I'm saying this to you. If you are currently the doormat for your organization, if you are currently the doormat for your organization, it's time for you to understand your worth. Because if you don't understand your worth today, You're not going to understand your worth when you're negotiating your way to somewhere else that's more healthy for you. It's imperative that we put psychological safety at the front of every decision we make as Black people, as brown people, as, as the marginalized, disadvantaged people in this world. Decisions we make must be based on our psychological safety. Am I going to have a psychological safe environment now? Can I create that here? How do I create that here? Because for us, it's no longer showing up for the paycheck, it's showing up for our wellness. Hundreds of years after we left slavery, and we left oppression, we have to understand that we don't need to keep being the one that carries the burden and the water. My Jamaican grandmother used to say, "We are not the water carriers." And that's the key. We cannot continue to be the water carriers for our organizations. If we're working for dysfunctional leaders, we need to recognize that we can't carry the water for that dysfunction. We can't do it. We cannot continue to do that. If you are walking into your house every day stressed out because of the work environment you're in and the pressures and the microaggression, and the subtle aggression, it is affecting you psychologically. It is taking away from your life expectancy. Our wellness needs to matter, not just our Blackness, not just our brownness, but our wellness. And if you care about me as a minority employee in your workforce, then you're going to create psychological safe places for me to grow. You're going to do that for me. But if you don't care about me, you are going to continue to create these environments where it is not psychologically safe for me to be in. And for all of you who are putting up with that, that, that total disrespect of you It's time for you to embrace the Great Resignation. It's time because we cannot continue. We cannot continue to do what we're doing. We can't continue to do this. It's taxing. It's emotionally challenging. It's, it's wearing us thin. And as people, we need to understand our own limitations. No job is perfect, but no job should cause you emotional scar. When I talk especially to women and I listen to their stories and I deeply listen and I give them runway to talk, all I hear is psychological trauma. That's what I hear every call is, psychological trauma. That's what I hear, you know, I hear it. And so I feel it and I try my best to give people advice on how to navigate it. That is one of my goals is just to say, I have, I'm here to hear you. But HR leaders, talent development, recruiters, you have to ask the bold questions in your organization. You have to look and take a mirror to your organization and your leaders. People are not leaving your company. They're leaving your dysfunctional leaders, right? They're leaving your dysfunctional leaders. That's what's happening. That is what's happening. That is what's happening. They are leaving your dysfunctional leaders. So I think we need to take a timeout and a reset. Here's a scenario for all of you, and here's the scenario: a young person joins your team. A young person joins your team. You've never embraced and onboarded them properly. You've never given them the lay of the land. You've not told them where they can go in your organization. You've made assumptions about what they want and you threw them in. And those young folks, some of them have parents like me who say, "No, you don't need to do that. Keep sending your resume out." And then you wonder why they quit less than 90 days in or where they last a few weeks and they're gone. Right? You wonder, you wonder why that happened. Thank you, Brian, for posting this. Dr. Brian, it is an emotional scar. It is an emotional scar, and we have to recognize that it is an emotional scar for us. But for young people, they're not going to put up with this dysfunction that you are creating. They're not going to put up with it. Young people are not going to do this. See, people my age— and I tell everybody, I'm not hiding my age, I'm 58, right? But I tell people, at age 58, I have less tolerance for BS than I did when I was 40. But my young counterparts, my children, And the young folks that I encounter, they have less tolerance for your BS than my generation did. And so we still have it in our head that they're supposed to come in and earn their time, but if they come in and they don't feel psychologically safe and they don't feel emotionally well at the end of your trauma, they are going to leave because they value their mental health more than we, my generation, did. My generation allowed you all to take a crap on us, and we have told our children not to allow you to take a crap on them. This is what's happening. This is what the Great Resignation is. This is what the Great Resignation is. This is what it is, you know. This is what it is. And so what we end up seeing is people walking out the door. Yay, it's been great, see ya! It's gonna happen more and more. It's going to happen more and more. It's gonna happen. It is absolutely going to happen more and more. We can't keep doing this. So the question for everybody, the question that we have to ask ourselves, is what kind of work environment do we want to be a part of? What type of work environment do we want to be a part of? And please, all of you, stop saying we're creating an inclusive work environment. By golly, you're not. You're not even coming close, most of you. You're not including young people at the table. You're really not including the person who's been sitting in the desk for 28 years. And begging to be seen, you're not even seeing them either because they've been invisible for 28 years. Here's something I want to say to everybody. Here's the thing that happens. Let me give it to you. This is me. I love Home Depot. It's my favorite store on the planet. I love Lowe's. It's my favorite store on the planet. I'm a home weekend doer. That's my role. Right? That cute commercial, that's me. But here's what happens. If you go into the electrical department in Home Depot or Lowe's, you will find a dimmer switch that most of you have in your dining room. You have a dimmer switch that turns the lights down because you got pretty lights in your dining room. But for employees in your organization, when someone is recruited to your company, Black, brown, woman, male, whatever. Somebody comes into your organization. They come in with the full light bulb on. The light bulb is completely on. They're enthusiastic. They're happy. They want to be there. They're, they're in, they're just a want to be a part of your team. And your managers attach a dimmer switch to these employees. And your managers attach a double dimmer switch to Black people. You do. You put a dumber dimmer switch on us. You put two, because one is not enough. See, the manager that got me to quit told me that, that I didn't have any possibilities. She didn't see me past an adjuster's desk. She thought I could be an adjuster for the rest of my life. That's what she said to me. You don't have any potential to advance was the verbiage in her evaluation of me. 22 years later, I've written 3 books. I've spoken on some huge stages. So who didn't see my possibilities? Was it her or was it me? See, I saw my possibilities, and that's what Black people, y'all need to figure out. What is possible for you? Right? Because everyone is attaching a dimmer switch to us. And here's why they're doing it. Let me, let me tell you the why they're doing it. Because my mother told me, you have to be the best at anything you do. You gotta be the best. Learn more, be more, show up bolder. That's what my mother told me. So I show up in your workforce, bold Margaret on full blast. I've learned and I've read more than you, and I'm showing up because my mother told me to be the best, right? My mother told me to be the best when I showed up. So I show up as the best and you're intimidated by the fact that I showed up as the best. You're intimidated that I showed up as the best. So instead of adding one dimmer switch to me, you add two. Because it's your single goal to turn my lights out. That's inclusion. That's what we call inclusion. That's what your managers do. Your managers are hell-bent on turning my light bulbs off, and you do it through the psychological torture that is daily. That's how you do it. You psychologically torture me into second-guessing the boldness that I am, second-guessing the person I am, second-guessing who I am. So I begin to think I'm not good enough, even though my mother beat into my head for 20-something years before I arrived in the workforce that I was— I had to show up the best, right? So instead So instead, you flip a dimmer switch on me, but you flip the dimmer switch on anybody that threatens your position as a leader. So you're dimmer switching young people, you're dimmer switching Black, white, brown, you're dimmer switching everybody because that's what your managers know how to do. They don't know how to turn the pilot up, they know how to turn it off. So people come into the organization, they come in with all of their boldness, and we figure out how to shut them down because it doesn't fit what we want. So we shut them down and we think it's okay. And then when they quit, we replace them with somebody else that we get to turn the dimmer switch off on. That's what we do. That's what we do well. That's who we are as people, as leaders, because for God's sake, we turn the light up on somebody and they shine us and we move them. I asked a group yesterday when I was speaking, I said, here's the— here's my bellwether or my curve when it comes to leadership. If you were leading people, would you look into your team and say, this person is worthy of being my boss, this person has the potential to be my boss? Would you do that? Would you do that as a leader leading people? Would you look around in your ranks and say, "This employee has the potential to be my boss, but here's the deal. Would you empower that person so that they are supervising you?" Now let's talk about human nature. See, that's why leaders, your quote leaders, put dimmer switches on people. You put dimmer switches on women. You put dimmer switches on everybody. Your organization is not there to grow people. You're there to figure out how to turn their lights off. That's what we're there to do. And then we say, oh, we're developing leaders, we're making leaders. No, we're not, because we haven't taught leaders how to see possibilities. We haven't taught leaders to see what's possible for everyone. We haven't taught leaders to meet an employee where they are and build their potential beyond the desk that they're in. That's not what we've been taught to do. We are dimmer switchers, and our goal is to turn the person's lights off. But here's what happens. Organization and HR and talent folks. You turn the person's lights off, but they come into work every day. They show up and you pay them. You pay them to have turned their lights off and they're not giving you what you're paying them for. And that is the psychological crazy about talent development. About people, this people business in the insurance industry. Let me talk to y'all for a minute. Let me go full-on Southern with y'all. In the insurance industry, you're only good at doing two things: poaching talent and hoarding talent. And then you're hoarding them, you're turning their lights out. That's all you're good at. You're not good at anything else. You're not good at grooming people because no other industry allows an adjuster, the most talented person on your team, to sit in a desk for 25 years waiting for God to come and retire after 40 years in the same spot they started. And adjusters, I'm talking to you guys, you allow organizations to poach you from one side of the room to the next without ever advancing your career. You're being poached for 5 cents, and they know they can poach you, and they don't have to build you. They don't have to create a career path for you. They have to do nothing except grab you, give you a signing bonus, and turn you on like a light switch over at the new place. That's it. That is it. That is what we do. That is what we do. So if you're joining me on Inclusion Unscripted, I'm gonna tell y'all the truth, and you are not coming here to hear me sugarcoat anything. I am here to tell you the truth because it's about time that as diverse people we start saying the truth, our truth. You've created a psychological unsafe work environment for us for years, and we're tired. That's it. That's what we need to say to HR, to managers, to leaders. Stop it. And here's how you're doing it. This is what you're doing. The microaggression of, um, are you sure you know how to do that? Maybe I should micromanage you while you do it. You know, or, you went to that HBCU? Didn't they teach you anything over at that HBCU? Or, oh, oh, okay, uh, um, we— I just don't think you're capable yet. There's a— there's a couple more hoops you need to jump over before you're eligible for that promotion. That's what we're doing to people. That's what we're doing to people. Thank you all for who are putting comments into the chat. I am here to shake things up. I am here to not allow you all to live in your comfort zone anymore. See, here's the deal with me. I used to care. I used to worry about what people thought. I used to bite my tongue even though I was saying what needs to be said. But today, at age 58, having survived 2020, I don't really care. You all need to hear what is going on. You need to hear the truth. Your people, your Black people in your organization that you've been giving them these career ladders, they're telling you to shove your ladder and they're leaving. That's what they're doing. That's what's happening. They're telling you to shove your ladder where the sun doesn't shine, and they're walking out the door because they're tired. They're tired. They're exhausted. So what do we do? I always want to give everyone a marching order. What do we do? Let's talk about career ladders and career mobility. This is a time for everyone working in an organization, functional or dysfunctional organization, no matter where you're working, it's time for you to evaluate your career. Here's what I say to people: your job is to work, but your personal job, your personal job is to manage you. As a person, as an individual. Your personal job is to manage your career. It is not up to your manager, your leader, your organization to manage your career. If you ask 99 times and they don't give it to you and you are sure you are qualified— let me, let me preface that because a lot of you ask for stuff and you are not qualified. Let's, let's be real, right? You haven't done the hard work to build a qualification. You've just sat in the desk day after day. There's a difference between getting qualified and doing time. There is a difference. If you've gone out, looked at the job description for the position you want, you've made a list, you've checked the list, at least 60% you got on that list, and you've gone to your manager and your leader and you've said, I want to be groomed for upward advancement. I'm tired of sitting in this desk. And your manager says, okay, um, but here's the conversation. Let me pause for a second. Here's the conversation. I want upward advancement by— you need a date because a lot of you go into these meetings with your leaders and say, I want to move up. No, I want to move up by June 2022. That's my date. Because if By April 2022, I don't see that you're making movement towards my movement, I'm sending out my resumes May 1, right? That's the attitude. Because when they're terminating us, they don't really care. They give you the box, you're out the door. I'm asking you, especially Black people, take charge of your career, take charge of your upward mobility. Don't sit in the desk. Women, you guys, me, you Women, stop sitting in the desk with your head down like this. Put your head up, figure out where you're going, make a path to get there. Invest in your career development. Invest in it, right? So we have to talk about this upward mobility. Don't sit there and take no as an answer. No means one thing: next opportunity now. That's what it means. No means next opportunity now. It's time for us to embrace the Great Resignation as Black people. I know a lot of you who are my clients, you're probably freaking out that I'm saying this. If you're working with me as a client building DE&I, I'm empowering your team to stay put because I'm helping you do the hard work around mentorship and sponsorship and champion and embracing young folks and giving them opportunity. But if you're out there still trying to do DE&I by the policy, by the book, go for it. I'm telling those people, if you're not creating a psychological safe place for them, then it's time for them to go. Because our psychological safety and our emotional wellness is worth more than a paycheck. We cannot continue to take on the emotional scars. It's the reason because our inner— in our body as Black people is trapped our emotions. And that's the reason why we have all kinds of illness. That's the reason. Because we stay in psychological unsafe conditions and it affects us physically. So what do we do? As an organization, shine a light on your leaders, start training them to manage people, figure out their skills gap. You're not fixing DE&I, ladies and gentlemen, HR folks, leaders, you're not fixing DE&I. You're fixing your dysfunctional leaders. DE&I will follow functional organizations. The organizations that are getting this right are evaluating how they groom their leaders. They're calling leaders out who create psychologically unsafe conditions. If you are an ally of a woman, if you are an ally of a Black person, a Hispanic person, an Asian person, if you are truly an ally for me, when you see my psychological process being challenged and you see that I'm in a situation that is not psychologically safe, you will speak up for me. That's how you be an— that's how you are an ally. That's how you become an ally. That's what it looks like. You cannot continue to watch me melt down and think it's okay. Or while I'm melt— while the person is berating me or melt— messing with my mental health, you see it and you wait until I'm around the corner and you hug me and say, Margaret, I'm so sorry for what Johnny did or Jane did to you. No, speak up. Be my ally. That's what I want all of you to do in your organization. Shine a light on what is happening. Do not allow us to be psychologically scarred and made invisible, marginalized, Do not allow the organization to put dimmer switches on people with potential. Do not allow that. We have to stop this. This is how we stop the Great Resignation. This is how we stop it. The Great Resignation is not a new policy. It's not more benefits. It's not a bigger compensation package. It's fixing your dysfunctional leaders. That's it. That's the advice I'm giving to all of you. I wanna thank you all for participating today. So we are on live, um, here on LinkedIn every Friday at 2 o'clock. I'm here. Eventually I'll interview a few people, but for the first several episodes, I'm just gonna talk from the heart because I think we need to hear this. We need to hear the truth. Um, visit our website inclusionlearninglab.com. And to learn more about the work that I'm doing, we are launching the Inclusion Learning Lab Community for DE&I and HR and talent professionals and allies. We launched, soft launch this week. We're gonna launch officially November 1st. And we're creating a community where we can come in and have these safe discussions, but we can also discuss the changes we wanna see. And we can empower each other to continue to do the work because this work is hard. Doing the work of DE&I is hard. It is hard. I still have slots in my beta community. So if you wanna join the Inclusion Learning Lab beta, DM me on LinkedIn, Margaret Spence, and I'll be glad to talk with you about what I'm doing. So join me next week. We are going to talk about inclusion. Here's what I'm going to talk about. Inclusion is not a policy, it's an individual. That's next week's episode. We're going to talk deeply about inclusion, not as a policy, but as people. How do we include people? In the month of October, November, we're going to look at strategic DE&I, And December, I'm going to do the Great Career Reset, and we're gonna launch a mentorship program, a 12-month mentorship program for 2022. So thank you again for joining me. I super appreciate all of you. Come back next week, tell a friend, and just tune in to support me along the way. Thank you again. Take care. See you next week. Bye.

Safe and sound. And when I fall, you tied a rope to me. You're blessing me every day. I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings, but now I shine with your reflection on me. I'm getting back up on my feet. That you showed up was