Speaker and Author Glen Guyton: Cultural Competency Advocate is the next Espresso w/ Experts Guest!

All right, hi everybody, uh, Randy Dean here. It's time for another episode of Espresso with the Experts, and today I got a really fun one for you. We have Glenn Guyton. He goes by, uh, sort of the tagline of speaker, author, and advocate for cultural competency, which I think is a really important topic right now. So I'm excited to have this conversation. But if you know the format— well, let me stop the share so we can make this bigger screen so you can see both of us better. There he is. Uh, what I would like to do is ask you about your coffee cup.

All right, I have my— I have my coffee cup here.

Oh wait, that looks like a Star Trek logo to me.

Of course it's a Star Trek logo. Uh, this was a Christmas present from my, my kids, so they know that I love Star Trek. Uh, you know, I've been on long-time Trekkie. And so they actually— I don't— you can't see this really well. It's not— my coffee is not hot enough, but once the coffee is hot, it's a picture of Captain Kirk and it says, you know, "Beam me up, Scotty." So that tagline. Yeah, but once it's hot— it's not hot right now enough— that shows a picture. So if you have some good hot coffee— I've been drinking it for a while— but some good hot coffee, Captain Kirk will appear. You know, maybe I should put, uh, what's his name, uh, Jeff Bezos on there now since he's, uh, taking Captain Kirk to space. But did you watch it?

Did you watch the launch?

I watched a little bit of it, but you know, I, I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. I mean, I'm glad that, uh, Captain Kirk got to go to space for real, but you know, these billionaires shooting off into outer space is just— I don't know how I feel about it. Now, if I had the opportunity to go, would I go? Yes, of course I would get on that spaceship in a minute and go to space. But, uh, you know, just Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and what's the other guy, the guy from Virgin, you know, they're all, you know, billionaires just shooting off into space. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I agree. You know, it's like, you know, part of me thinks, wow, what a, what an amazing thing, and part of me thinks, boy, how could, how else could that money have been spent?

Yeah, yes.

Although I guess sort of my thinking is, you know, The, the critique all along about even the NASA space program, it has been, you know, why are we doing this when we got so many pressing issues right down here on planet Earth? But if you look at the history of NASA's programs, a lot of the technology that's come out of it has really benefited society.

But I agree that, boy, it sure seems like there's We wouldn't have GPS if it wasn't for the space program, right?

Yeah, exactly. But not just GPS, you know, our computers, basically, you know, all that work led into, you know, these, we got these. I don't know if that's a good thing though.

Maybe that might be a bad thing.

Yeah, with everything going on, I agree. You know, so, well, that's, that's fun. I, you know, that's a neat, that's a neat fun story. I love that. Alright, well, let's get in and talk about your primary area though.

Okay.

You were, you were saying that, you know, you're sort of an advocate for cultural competency.

Right. Yeah.

Tell me what you think that means. I'd like to know what that means.

You know, a lot of us, we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so that's the primary area that I work in, and cultural competency is just an extension of that. Often we just kind of get caught up in one aspect of our identity, and we think that our identity, whether it's racial, sexual orientation, religious, we think these are distinct somehow from our overall culture. But I tell people that culture is the way we do things around here. And then also, as we think about culture, it's the habits, the customs, the artistic expressions, you know, the way we do things based somewhat on our identity. And so if we're culturally competent, you know, diversity, equity, and inclusion doesn't have to be this scary thing. We're just trying to realize how can we use the, the various gifts that we bring, the, the various things that are part of our identity, how do we use those— I guess the word would be holistically— to enhance our work environments, to enhance our team dynamics. I mean, that's what cultural competency is about. It's just really learning how to leverage differences and being able to navigate those without being threatened by those differences.

Yeah. And you know, it's interesting because, um, I was thinking about a lot of these topics recently. And one thing that's, you know, popped into my head is it feels like, at least here in the United States, We're suffering from what I would consider almost like hyper-tribalism.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so it's like, it's like we're trying not to get along on purpose almost.

Yeah.

And it's, and it's, and it's, it's tearing apart families, it's tearing apart friendships, it's tearing apart communities. Um, you know, whereas, you know, people, it seems like people aren't seeing the benefits of a more diverse culture. They're, they're just seeing threat, like you said.

Yeah.

You know, uh, what, what are you trying to tell people when you see this?

I mean, I think we should have a healthy appreciation of different cultures. That's first and foremost, you know. So as we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, there are some different steps. You know, diversity is just variety, right? It's just, you know, you're just fitting different things or people, colors, you know, in a room. But that's just one piece of it. So inclusion is, hey, we— how do we get those people utilizing their gifts? How, how are they a part of the program, the system, the thinking process, you know, designing things, uh, helping you realize, you know, what the blind spots are? That's, that's the next step that we want to get to. And then equity is just making sure we bring back some balance to the system. So if we've had a system that's been out of balance for a number of years, how do we begin to balance it? Now it's different from, you know, equality where we say, hey, everyone's just equal. But if you've had imbalance for a while, how do we bring an aspect of justice to that and common sense? I think equity needs both justice and common sense because you can't just transform culture overnight. And, you know, as we think about— many corporations do work on cultural change, like how do we change the culture? That's important, but our identity is a part of that culture. So we've been working at these things forever, especially in the corporate environment. But somehow when we start to inject race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, people start to freak out, right? But it's all part of culture. Cultural change. You know, how do we do things differently? You know, uh, how do we bring in people and have a common culture but also pull from the best practices, best practices of these other cultures? So that's, that's what I want to do is help people to really leverage that diversity. I think it makes things better. I mean, I know it makes things better.

Yeah, it's interesting. I did one of my programs, I talk about managing and leading better staff and team meetings. Yeah. And I actually have a little bit about diversity where I do an interesting little exercise. And, you know, and I never know what's going to be in the room. I mean, I, you know, it could be, you know, it could be a whole bunch of people that look and sound the same, or it could be really diverse. But the fascinating thing is it doesn't matter because the exercise I do is a little bit of a brainstorming activity usually over something that has nothing to do with work. And I just try to get all the ideas. And then the first thing I say coming out of that is, raise your hand if there's something up here that you would not have thought of.

Right.

And almost everybody raises their hand. And I go, that right there is the value of diversity.

Yeah.

You know, and it doesn't have to be, like you said, skin color or sexual orientation or gender. It can just be experience and education and background, and everybody brings something to the table. And if you find a good way to do it, you're going to get better benefits out of it. Now, you mentioned bringing inclusion in and really helping leverage. What are some of your key steps on that? How do you, how do you get that inclusion really indoctrinated?

Yeah, you know, there's a, this old saying, I don't know who came up with this, and I, and I always I hate this analogy, right? I think it's the worst analogy. Uh, it says diversity is being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance. I don't know if you've ever heard that.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do you not— why do you not like that?

Because it's absolutely wrong, right? It's, it's, it's acting like, okay, well, it still doesn't acknowledge the power dynamics because it's your party, you're getting to pick and choose everything, and then you're asking me to dance. It's like I'm some tender southern belle and I need you to— I need your permission to dance. Really, if we think about inclusion is, hey, I want to help select the menu, I want to help select the DJ, I want to be an integral part of what happens. And so where we've made a mistake, I think, in corporate America because of— I mean, everything has to go through a process, but what we thought inclusion was, was Let's just ask this one person of color, or let's just ask this one woman what they think of the plan that we've already developed. You know, that's just tokenism. That's not inclusion. Real inclusion is you have a sharing of power. So, right, you need to bring in a diverse population at the beginning of a process. That's the very— that's the very basic step of inclusion, you know, recognizing that we need a balance of power. People need to be able to share their voice in authentic ways. When I started working with one organization, they really focused on diversity, and I said, yeah, you did a good job with diversity. We would have a meeting and it would be mostly white people. We would sit at table groups and they say, oh, we want to make sure we're diverse, so let's put one person of color at each table. I said, that's awful. Do you understand the position that you're putting this one person of color in? So, so now they have to represent and be the voice of, you know, their identity, their race, or their ethnicity. I said, that's not helpful. What you need to do is have some balance at the tables. Don't just put one person and isolate them. Put, put other people, you know, that may be from that same demographic at the table, so at least they're comfortable. At least they feel like they can share, they have some support. So we want to put people in a position where they can succeed, where their voice where they have power to transform. That's the steps of inclusion. And so as you start to think through your plans and develop systems and programs, you wanna have diverse teams that are empowered to actually make change. Yeah, yeah.

And now it's interesting, you know, you mentioned that it's not just being invited to the party, it's being asked to help plan the party.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, that might be a better way to put it. I like that, yeah.

That makes a big difference 'cause, you know, we may have different, different musical tastes. And I've been to some places where, hey, we want you to participate. And it's like, hey, this is, this is, this is just you. This is not me. I'm just sitting here, you know. I've been invited to this, but I'm not really a part of this. I feel alone. I feel isolated. And that's what we do sometimes at work. And another part of it is really meeting people where they are. You know, I was a, I was a teacher in a past life, and, you know, I was taught this concept of differentiated education, which means, you know, we all learn differently and you have to meet students where they are. And so as we think about inclusion, we need different things. There's not just one size fits all. You know, as a Black man, you can actually mentor Black men the same way that you do white males. That's— I've read a study on that. What we need as Black men is very similar to what a white male would need to develop in a system. Why? Well, because probably because Black men have assimilated to that way of thinking over time. But a Black woman would need a different type of support system in an organization than a Black male. And so as we think about inclusion, part of that is meeting people where they are, designing systems of support to help people grow and thrive.

Is this what— is this what you sort of do when you go into like a corporate client, is, you know, sort of look at some of these challenges and help them build plans on how to you know, make positive change in these areas?

Yeah, you know, my first step is, hey, asking them, what do you want to do and how is this going to relate to your overall organizational goals? You can't disconnect them. Diversity inclusion is not a separate strategy, it's not a separate thing, it's part of your overall strategic plan. And so my goal is to help them to really think through, first of all, what do you hope to achieve with this? Uh, the, the great thing I think is, uh, you know, after 2020— before 2020, I used to get a lot of clients that just wanted checkbox training, which means, hey, can you come in and do diversity training? Well, what do you need? I just come in, we just need some diversity training. Well, what are your goals? We just come in and do diversity training. But now, but now I work with clients to say, hey, these are some, these are some tangible skills that we want our people to have. And that's, that's the most fun for me. You know, I have some clients where I do start from ground zero. I'm, I'm saying, hey, these are the steps you need to go through to have a successful program. But then I have other clients that have really well-developed diversity, equity, inclusion strategies for the organization, and they want me to come and provide a specific skill. So like, I work with one company on how to communicate about racial differences in the workplace. And so I teach them how to do that. You know, I give them some very specific tools that they can utilize to say, hey, if you want to have a meeting that is, you know, in some sense, maybe surrounded by diversity, meaning by, you know, racial or identity differences, How do you talk about that in an effective way? And so I give them some tools to go through a process that I think will be helpful to have those conversations. But that's a very specific skill. And that skill, even though it will help them with diversity, equity, and inclusion, it will help them be a better team leader regardless, because we have to know how to communicate with our people, motivate our people, be empathetic with the, with our workforce, and to let them know that we genuinely care about them. In order to be, I think, more productive.

Have you seen any good, you know, sort of success stories from the companies that have sort of moved up the ladder on their DEI programs?

I think, yeah, I think it's pretty evident in a lot of these companies. You know, I was an executive for a number of years and I've worked through some of these things. So the things that I teach are things that I practice in my own organizations and I've seen how they can make a difference. Now it doesn't root out racism, sexism, homophobia, doesn't, doesn't always just clear those things out, but it gives you strategies to deal with those things and to make, you know, maybe marginalized groups feel better. I know it works. Even some of the companies that I've worked with that after I've gone through the process, I've recommended people to go work for them because I guess I can say, hey, you know, truly this organization will support you. And so that's, I think, success right there. When people start recruiting for you, you know that you've achieved achieve some things. Many times people call me when they're in crisis, right? Uh, and they're not doing it well. That's what I tell people. They— when things are broken, I get some calls. And so it's a challenge to work through these things, and it takes time. You know, one hour with me is not going to transform your organization. Oh, this is a— this is a journey. And I have one client that I worked with for an entire year, uh, training all of their staff on just one aspect: communication. They wanted me to help them with communication. So I have a class that I do with them, but that's— and I'm training every leader, but they are very strategic in what they want to accomplish. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, uh, it's interesting, uh, a couple things that just came up from what you were just saying. One, I always tell people when they do my programs, you know, time management, email management, productivity, I'm like, I, I hope this is the start of your study in this area, not the end. And I'm hoping that this becomes a springboard for you to dive into this and get better. You know, it sounds like you're sort of saying the same thing in that area. Yeah.

The other thing, Randy, you know, I took your course, right? And, you know, so I feel guilty every time my email box fills up, but your voice still rings in my head. I'm like, well, what would Randy do with this? How do I get all these emails out of my inbox? So good strategies though. But like you said, you know, you gotta keep at it. You know, you gotta pull out the tools that are shared and, you know, even bring people back. You know, as you get new staff people, you need to onboard them and teach them these things.

Yeah. And, you know, the thing that I'm sure that we're all fighting a bit is a lifetime of programming, basically. You know, we got— I know one of the things that my wife and I, we talk about quite frequently is the concept of inherent bias, you know, and you don't even— sometimes you don't even know you're exuding an inherent bias.

Yeah.

And you really are, you know, so, and I think that, you know, like they say, you can't really fix a problem until you're aware of it.

Yeah. So, yeah, so I do a— I actually have a YouTube video on implicit bias. I talk about implicit bias.

Yeah, um, can you send— can you, um, give me the link when we get done with the program? Because I'll post it in the comments, everybody. I'll get you the link to Glenn's video.

Yeah, yeah, it's a fun— it's a fun little video, I think. Yeah, but like, we— so we all have bias, right? And so we've kind of got bias— given bias this bad name. But, but watch the video. Bias helps us, right? Bias helps us because we have these stories that we've built over years in time, and it helps us to kind of cut to the chase. It helps to protect us in certain situations because we can recognize something that's, you know, that's wrong, right? So bias is a good thing if we are aware of it and we know how to use it. But we can fall into bias where it's a blind spot and we aren't able to adapt properly. So that's what we want to do is learn how to adapt. We have to recognize our bias. That's why I don't talk about unconscious bias. I think unconscious bias is a cop-out. It's a lazy— it's lazy. Oh, I didn't know I had this bias. You know, I'm just sleepwalking through my life. That's— no, once you are aware of your bias, you are accountable for it. So then it becomes implicit bias, not unconscious bias. So I make that distinction actually when I work with groups.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a great way to put it. You know, it's like having it to where you're aware of what it is, you can use it when it's truly necessary or useful. Yeah. But you can put it out of the way when it's becoming damaging or harmful.

Right.

And, and that then could open the doors for people to truly be able to work and collaborate together much better. Yeah.

Because there's some things I'm biased about that I don't plan to change, Randy. I'm biased against, uh, Carolina barbecue. I think it's an abomination. I'm Texas barbecue all the way. So if you bring a Carolina barbecue to my table, I will throw it in the garbage. We might have a aesthetic about that.

Up here we might have the same debate about Chicago-style, Detroit-style, and New York-style pizza.

Exactly. So, and guess what?

I like them all.

Give me a buffet.

You're inclusive in your eating. I am very inclusive in my pizza, uh, methodologies. Uh, so that's fun. But, um, now in terms of You know, what would be the first steps you would recommend for an organization that wanted to just get better at this? Yeah, first step, what's the first step?

Yeah, first of all, I think that, you know, what we want to do is really think about what your goals are. So, you know, what do you, what do you hope to accomplish? Like, why, why are you, you doing that? I mean, that's what I tell people to do, and then commit to it. So You need organizational commitment because it takes time. This is not nothing that's going to happen overnight again, or one meeting, one hour with Glenn is not going to transform your organization. You have to be committed to it and really explain to people why you're doing it again. It's not— don't just do it because you is politically correct. I mean, that, that, that has a place. But what is your business case for doing that? You know, I tell people I'm not You know, I can do some religious training. You know, I can do that. I can do religious moral training, but that's really not what I focus on as far as my business. What is the business case for you working at diversity, equity, inclusion? What is that going to look like in your organization, and what does success mean for you? And then are you going to commit to that? That's really the first step with organizations. And then the next thing is then energize people. Get people energized about it. Get people excited about it. There are a number of ways to do that. You know, most times when people hear, oh, it's for diversity training, I don't want to do that. Oh, this is going to suck. Oh, they're just going to talk bad about white people. That's not what I do. Diversity, equity, inclusion is for everyone. So how do we leverage all of our gifts and talents? Everyone that's a part of this workplace, how do we get people excited? And so you need kind of a mix of how you approach this. Everything Can't just be mandatory boring training. You need some exciting training aspects. You need different types of training aspects that's going to lead to different people. You need some fun activities. You need some voluntary things. So you have to have a good mix to get your people engaged. And part of that is telling them, hey, this is what the win looks like. Again, we all think we know what we want to accomplish with diversity, equity, and inclusion, but we don't. We really don't know. You have to really define those things because what equality, equity looks like for me, Glenn, may not look the same for Randy Dean. And so if we're part of a team, part of an organization, we have to lay those things out. These are the things that we want to accomplish. And this is how we know we've gotten to where we want to go.

That's fantastic. It seems like maybe a pretty good endpoint too. You know, I guess I'm just sort of thinking that, you know, we just tied it up in a nice little bow.

Okay. Okay.

So maybe we should leave it there because I would then say to all of the viewers today, if this is an area of interest, you got yourself a resource right here. And Glenn, you intimated a little bit, you said something about religious. You're, you're an ordained minister too, correct?

I am. I am. So I do have that in my background. You know, You know, you also, you served in the military. Served in the military. Yeah, I have a pretty diverse, you know, you want to be a great trainer to have diverse experiences that I, and I do.

So yeah, you, you have a unique and, uh, really interesting background. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, I just would share that, um, you know, if you're looking for somebody that can walk the talk and isn't just going to come checkbox it, like you said, but is instead going to help you actually dive into this and work toward a positive, long-lasting, culture-changing, in a positive way outcome, I think Glenn might be a really good resource for you.

So I've been doing this for over 20 years, Randy, before it was popular, before, you know, before everyone was talking about it. I was, I was doing this work.

So it's critical. I tell you, it is critical right now with that. What did I call it? Hyper-tribalism, you know. So yeah, you know, I think that, uh, we gotta— I hope we can get through this phase and, and do it in a way that gets us back to a much more positive trajectory. So, um, let me, let me go back and share the screen so they can get your contact info. All right, yeah, let's see. I'm gonna hit share and we'll— there's Glenn again, uh, there's his website, but here is his email address. And look at him, he's up there working and he's working so good. Is that a towel?

That, that is a towel, but that was for an example that I was using.

Oh, I just thought you'd got yourself all worked up into a lather. I've done that before up on stage. It's like, I was like, what's the old, uh, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Don't panic, carry a towel. Yeah.

And all my social media is @GlennGuyton, so if you want to follow me on LinkedIn or anything else, it's @GlennGuyton. I made it really simple for people.

Ah, that's fantastic. So, uh, go, uh, check him out. Are you doing like I'm doing, trying to put a lot of content out onto your LinkedIn so people can, uh, you know, sort of see what you're working on? And you said you do some YouTube videos also, right?

Yep, check those out. So I got good tips, good free information, and Randy will put the link to the, uh, uh, implicit bias video there so you can check that out too.

Excellent. I'm gonna actually subscribe to your channel as soon as we get off the channel, off of this. Yeah, I'll get— I'm gonna become because I, I love your work, and so I want to jump out and, uh, get in there. I, for whatever reason, I didn't realize that you had an active and growing YouTube, so I'm gonna grow it one more.

So I even have my own Glenn Guyton URL, so that's great, right? Yeah, awesome.

Okay, well, uh, here's the thing, uh, so remember, this is how you get in touch with Glenn. Go check out his website. He's got some really good resources. I'm going to put in the content, uh, comments the link to the video he mentioned, and you've also got like a little giveaway thing on your website too, correct? So we'll get that information in the comments.

What—

tell me about that again.

Yes, the Diversity Goals Checklist. So if you're just starting with diversity, equity, inclusion in your organization, I provide you a little checklist so you can start really doing that first step, thinking about what you hope to accomplish with this work. Then you can give me a call and I'll help you get the rest of the way.

Sounds great. And, um, with that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like I said, tie it up in a bow. Uh, there, look at that, I should have had that up there first. Uh, and I am, uh, once again, Randy Dean. Randy, there I am. Uh, but, uh, you know, uh, I'm the Email Sanity Guy. And yes, learn more about what I do. Uh, I actually did work with Glenn a couple years ago.

Great work. It really helped out, helped our team a whole lot, and it's really transformed how I do email.

Yeah, well, you know, we all got to find our little spot, right? Yeah. Oh, uh, but you can get more info about me right here. And obviously, if you like these videos, please give it a like, please make comments. This is one where it'd be neat to see some interesting comments coming from the viewers. And, uh, consider subscribing to my channel too. And with that, I'm gonna say thanks everybody. I'm gonna end the recording now.

See you, Glenn.

Thank you so much for doing this.

No problem, Randy.