International voices: Diversity stories from around the world | with Torin Ellis

Foreign. Welcome welcome. Welcome to I think this is show number 43. I gotta check with Niall. He'll tell me hopefully in the chat in a second. Well, welcome back to the short list. I'm your host Johnny Campbell, CEO and co founder of Social Talent. We are an enterprise platform that helps scale hiring cultures in large organizations around the world and as part of that we're deeply committed to the topic of equity and diversity and today we're going to be discussing international voices and diversity stories from around the world. I want to shed some light on other narratives in that equitable and inclusive world that we all work and live in. I want to try and hopefully work with our guests today to shine some some more lights on those different topics and have a discussion around that. But I want to remind those of you who are new to the show, hi, Welcome. I hope you enjoy this show. We are a weekly broadcast that goes out live on YouTube on LinkedIn but is also recorded as a podcast on Apple Spotify. Wherever you find your good podcasts and you can find out more about our show and check out our back catalog@socialchalent.com the shortlist as it's a live show, we take audience questions, comments. We love your live comments. So you happen to be listening to this live on LinkedIn or YouTube. Please join in the conversation, ask questions of our guest or myself, or just give us your comments and we'd love to read them out and get you involved in the conversation as well. If you're listening to the podcast then you can't ask us live, but any links we refer to during the show we will put into the show notes of your podcast app. So check us out there. And yes, this is show number 43. Speaking of 43, this is the third time today's guest has joined us on the show. Love having them on and it's right for the topic. I remember the first time we had this guest on was last summer and literally it was within the week of the murder of George Floyd, which was an incident that sparked an enormous amount of conversation, movement, uprising, change hopefully. And that was last summer. It seems like a long time ago, but it's probably now more important than ever that we must find an intentional way to bring about a difference in this narrative and to really make sure that this vibration of diversity and equity, inclusion and conversation that really kind of had a reinsurgent of life last year continues to grow. And no better person to bring on the show this week with over 20 odd years experience working with this within this sphere is torrin Ellis Torrin is joining us today, I think from Baltimore, and he's at the really at the forefront of this whole topic. Somebody who's speaking daily, not just weekly daily, whether you're listening to his SiriusXM FM show or you're basically listening to one of his talks or working with him as a client, his knowledge and wisdom around DIB is one that I greatly appreciate and have done so for the last five or so years. Torrent welcome back to the show. You might just remind some of our newer guests a little bit about yourself, your background, why you have such a passion around this topic, and then we'll get stuck into the news and chat a little bit about international diversity. I know an area you've been looking into a lot recently.

Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost I want to say thank you. And when you say guest, I almost cringe a bit because I feel like I'm family. Like the only thing that I'm not rocking today is my green, but I feel like I'm family. The amount of time that I've been working with social talent, you know, you, Vince, Holly, Shannon, you know, everyone. I mean, just the entire crew. So thank you again for allowing my voice to, to be heard around the world, you know, through the platform that you are building and that you lead. A diversity strategist, risk mitigator, no longer on Sirius xm, but I do have an incredible podcast called Crazy and the King with my dear POD partner, Julie. So Wash and we talk about, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging to like for me, this is not a cartoon. It's not something that I like play with. I absolutely live and breathe and unapologetic around my focus for providing access and opportunity and equity and equality and belonging and inclusion and representation. It's what I believe. It absolutely is how I live. So I just thank you again for allowing me to be on the show with you.

Torren. There's lots of, lots of stuff we could have dived into because unfortunately this is an issue that continues to burn around the world because it isn't solved. It's nowhere near solved in many aspects. So I want to dive straight into the news. I'm going to tease out a few articles to get your thoughts on and have a discussion about things I think our audience will hope you find super interesting. I was really intrigued to find out these different international stories, stories you might not have heard before. If you're a listener to the show, if you listen to this topic and listen to it all over the world, you still might not have come across these topics and new issues. And that's what I really want us to try and get into here. So let's go with the first of this week's news stories over to n. In the news. This is an article that appeared on the World Economic Forum's website, reform.org in the last couple of weeks, and it's on diversity, equity and inclusion have failed, according to the author. How about belonging, dignity and justice instead? And this article was authored by a woman called Ada Mariam Davis, founder and CEO of a company called Decolonized Design. And if I'm reading this correctly, as I found this fascinating. Torrent. Right. This is the one that really made me think the most. It made me stop and think, hang on a second. Has de and I failed. I thought there were actually some really interesting points in this. I'll maybe just give a quick summary of my take on this and then hand over to you. Torren. One of the things that really hit me was the author's accusation that a lot of effort put in by corporates into DEI and efforts is really just about avoiding litigation. And that's really the big thing, is you gotta be seen to be doing stuff because otherwise you face litigation. And I don't think there's a as many people who think like that. But there could be that corporate mindset that made me really be a bit more skeptical to think twice about some of the efforts I've seen. And really, do organizations really believe this, or is it something that they're just doing because it's good to put money into it? I mean, at the top level, the budget goes towards that. I don't believe that the people involved in executing it are doing it cynically. I think it made me think. But the second piece was her argument that we need to look at belonging, dignity and justice. And I got a sense of what she was talking about. I still felt like I just didn't really know what the difference between BDJ was from DEI and why it was so fundamentally different. And again, the cynical attitude I probably took from the author's opening few paragraphs made me think, hang on a second. Is this just somebody swapping out an acronym for their own purpose? I believe you have a lot more color to this story you can give to us. Torrent.

Yeah. So first and foremost, I'm gonna go back to the piece around box checking and. And litigation. And, you know, the numbers, they kind of fluctuate each and every year. But, you know, for the better part of the last decade, the number is around $8 billion that is spent on, you know, corporate diversity bias type training. And I would actually push back a bit and argue with you that, Johnny, a number of people actually believe that, like, there aren't. Because keep in mind, when we say it's the corporation, well, people make up corporations. And so there are a number of individuals inside of organizations that simply say, let's just do a training. Like, I get the calls all the time, I get the messages all the time. But Torn, we want someone to just come through and do unconscious bias training. That that's what we want. And when I give them a proposal or give them a suggestion as to what it, it should look like for them to really dismantle and do a forensic discovery of what their organization looks like from a diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging standpoint, that's not an investment that they want to make. They really do want to just simply check a box and try to avoid litigation. Hence the reason why we are still in 2021 here. And so I had a conversation actually with Ida, and her name is Ida Miriam Davis. Ida, as you stated, formed the company Decolonized Design, and she really wants to focus on belonging, equity and justice. She joined me on Clubhouse about two weeks ago, and I sent up a digital smoke signal because I said, you know, I want to better understand this because my initial feeling was around is this an individual who is trying to shake things up, rattle the system a bit and come through with a stronger, different acronym, one that could gain a bit of traction and, you know, her meteor could rise off of that. Not to say she's not a genuine individual, but it doesn't take anything these days for a hashtag to catch on, catch fire. And it become a part of our nomenclature. It becomes a part of what it is on who it is that we are. And so after speaking with her on Clubhouse, you know, for a good hour, an incredible individual, beautiful sister that is dedicated to doing positive work. And in her mind, she genuinely feels like, you know, DEI efforts in most organizations have fallen by the wayside. You know, on one side, you have individuals that feel like every time the conversation comes up, they are being attacked. We would sometimes refer to that as being fragility. On the other side, Johnny, you have people that are like, look, I don't want to sit through another unconscious bias training or, or anything related to bias, aggressions, harassment, because it's not me that's doing it. They're the ones doing it, so make them go to the class. I'm tired of going so that fatigue sets in. And so you have this confluence around fragility and fatigue. And in many organizations it's not working. So she's focused on belonging, equity, justice, dignity. And I believe, Johnny, last thing that I'll say, I believe that those tenants, while they are noble, strong, necessary, I think that they are certainly landing better in community spaces. B Corp, maybe organizations, non profit entities, smaller companies, and certainly those that focus around social justice, restorative justice. Those are the places where I think right now she is certainly having a heyday and hopefully it will spill over into corporate corridors around the country.

Yeah, I did make me think, right, And I think you, you, you raise a valid point. Right? There are maybe, maybe no, I should be more cynical about some of the reasons why folks want to roll out training. And somebody said to me this recently around never underestimate the laziness of middle managers. You know, as A guy said 80% of managers in his experience 30 year career said are lazy. And you think they're buying, you know, let's say a solution for D and I, they're buying a solution to make life easy. They're kind of going, can we just do the training? Because that's fine and you know, that'll fix that, that, that's my back covered and I've done my job. You know, the problem they're solving is different. They're solving a problem of make my life easier. You think they're solving a problem of fix the injustice in our business? It's like, no, no, they just want their life to be easier. When you start going, you should do it differently. They're going, don't, don't throw this hassle back at me. I just want to just tick my box and move on. My boss will be happy, the business is happy. We do it again next year, you get paid, what's the problem? And if you're actually up for change, that is a problem. Right. I've been thinking more about some of these topics. You know, I've never, never ever liked rolling in any training. That's just about informing somebody. I just don't think that works. You know, we have a motto in terms of how we build curriculum and social talent. That's why, how, why every three minute video needs to go why, how? And then why to the user, like why you need to learn this, how do you do it and why? And therefore telling someone they have an unconscious bias doesn't fit as an example in that, like, well, we don't have that training anywhere in our platform. Because it doesn't fit the why. How? Why? You know, I'm saying, you know, why is inclusivity more important? Great. How do I become more inclusive in my leadership or the way I run a meeting or. Or the way I conduct an interview? That's interesting to me. That's like, how do you actually change your behavior? And the author mentioned psychological safety, which is an area I started reading about more recently, and that just really intrigued me. Torn, I don't know how much you've gone down that road, but I kind of started thinking, well, if we just focused on building psychologically safe teams and environments, doesn't that fix a lot of the problems? Not all the problems, but a lot of them. Isn't that like. Because that's hard, right? It's behaviors of teams and leaders and everything else, but it promotes. It's not attacking the diversity and equity and inclusion agenda directly, but it's saying, let's actually change the behavior of the business to be more psychologically safe and drive those cultural things, transparency, et cetera. And they, in turn, will solve many of the problems for us because they create inclusive environments. They create atmospheres of belonging because you feel safe. What is your thought on those things?

No, I absolutely agree. I mean, I think about my days in corporate America, and it was back in the 90s, but. But we were inside of a building, 500, 600 people inside of the building, and we were all broken into teams of about 18 to 22, maybe 23 people. So that gives you an idea of how many different teams were inside of our building. I was one of the only managers that could walk through the entire building, greet people in the morning by name and be greeted by name. Because it was important for me to move through the building and create relationship, inspire people. You know, just tap them on the back and say, have a fantastic morning. And if you need some help, I know I'm not your team leader, but running get me, I'll do everything that I can to run down there real quickly and give you 30 seconds of power and help you close that sale. But we just built relationship. And now you can imagine if I'm doing that in a building with five or six hundred people, my team was like a family. What did I say to you when I opened up? Family, I don't want to be a guest. I'm like, I treated my team like family. And they, in turn did the same with me. We had the most efficient team in the building. We had the most tenured team in the building. Most tenured team across the entire. My average person was with me for two years. Well, conversely, teams were losing people every six months, every nine months, every 12 months. I still have friends today that were on my team 20 years ago. So psychological safety is something that is extremely important when you can build relationship with people in your organization, your business unit or your department, they feel comfortable sharing with you. The statistics are out right now, Johnny. I'm going to be talking about this on our podcast later this afternoon when we record how women are feeling as if they are under threat on Zoom. How is it that you. Somebody is doing something wrong if women can't get on Zoom calls in certain organizations and not feel safe, that's poor leadership. And if I was the leader of those leaders, I'd absolutely correct that problem immediately. And I have no problem reprimanded individuals, holding them accountable, putting them on a personal development plan. And if you can't meet those metrics, I find you another destination, period. So it's just not, it's not that hard, Johnny. To me, it's not that hard to show humanity and build relationship with the people on your, on your team and anybody who, who is out there viewing. If you find what I'm saying and what Johnny is suggesting to be an issue at me, you know, get on one of the social media platforms and send me an app so we can talk about that. I need to understand why is it that you have a hard time creating relationship and connectedness to the people that are in your business unit and your department. That makes no sense to me.

Speaking of humanity, I want to jump into our second news article here, Torn, which is kind of shocking, right? This is from the Guardian in the UK and they reveal six and a half thousand migrant workers have died in Qatar since the World cup was awarded. I wanted. This goes to our theme of let's expand at a more international level. You know, this is a good article to read. It's hard article to read, but it's well worth it. I think it's a, it's an issue that, you know, it's not just in Qatar, right? It's this idea in some cultures and countries that the life of somebody from a different country, our ethnicity or background, is worth. Worth less. And I think this is what the article is trying to get at. And it particularly talks about workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, who have died on building sites and everything else in Qatar in really weird undocumented circumstances that, you know, the undercurrent is that there isn't really safety in place that there's not as much concern because they're foreign workers. In Qatar, it wasn't, wasn't locals that were killed here. Don't worry. It's these migrants, migrant workers from these countries. This is, this is not a big.

Not a big problem.

Don't worry about it. And I've seen this in the Middle East. It's a real issue. Right. But other parts of the world where there is this idea of a life from a different culture background is worth less. And this is an issue you see all over the world. How do you, how do you deal with this? What are good ways to kind of fix this? Like what, what, what is the problem? Like, how do you address this issue? Because it can be so cultural in a country.

Yeah. And, and one other additional fact to that story. You know, I think it was like 2018 that they passed some legislation that said that at minimum, at minimum we need to pay these migrant workers $275 per month. That was 2018. So just three short years ago, they brought them up to $275. So what I say to myself when I saw the article, I, I asked myself, what is it that these people were dying for? If now you are paying them $300 per month, what were they dying for? What are they dying for? So again, baffling to me, whether it be in Qatar and the disrespect and lack of concern for life there, or the way that we treat migrant workers here in the US the way that we have policy from the US A bomb being dropped over in Palestine or Israel, that to me is like extremely important. Having babies locked up in cages on our border is extremely important because we are indoctrinating individuals. We are seeding in individuals minds that for somehow some reason those individuals are less than we are. Let's see if we can keep people arguing about immigration. And you know, yet folks ain't, I'm not trying to go work and listen, I've picked corn in the mid Midwest when I was growing up. I don't want to work in a cornfield. I don't want to work in picking strawberries. And to me, I don't want to do that. So I don't understand why it is that we, we, we tear people apart politically with these, these straw hats as far as I'm concerned, or straw man arguments as far as I'm concerned. But then we don't care about their life. Like that's the, that's like it's, it's baffling to Me, Johnny. And to know that 6,000 people have lost their life and, and it's just now being talked about, that's a problem. And so how do we address that? I think we do a better job of making sure that. And this is somebody who's sitting tens of thousands of miles away from Qatar, but I think we do a better job of, you know, as a global economy, as a global, you know, community, saying we, we got to make sure we get this information back to these respective countries. This is what is happening. You're making that journey up to work, to perhaps take care of your family, but this is what's happening. We got to make sure that that voice, that story, that narrative is being deposited in the respective geographies around the world so that people are not being taken advantage of and that the individuals in Qatar, a very wealthy country, a very wealthy country, will hold themselves to a higher regard. They'll hold themselves to a much more decent and. And I guess, standard of humanity than they have in the past. That absolutely is. And, and, and the other thing that I think we can do, you know, World cup is extremely big for you all over in Europe and certainly for some folks here in the US I'm not a person who watches soccer, so I couldn't tell you one team versus another team. But if I was a person who watched soccer, I wouldn't be watching it. I haven't watched an NFL football game in five years. So I can tell you I'm not a person who just talks about what it is that I believe in. If I knew that stat like I know it now, I would absolutely, boy, boycott the World Cup. There's no way that I'd be supporting them with my eyeballs or with my money.

So. So what I think is, personally, I don't think it's about boycotting the World Cup. I think it's about, you know, addressing the. The wider issue, which is that when somebody doesn't understand what. Or have exposure to someone else's culture, they can tend to see them as lesser and different. And what I've seen is that if you've broken bread and sat down for a meal with a family from a different culture, you cannot help but see them as exactly the same as you in every single way. But if there's somebody you've never been exposed to, you never, you know, sat down with a family from Sri Lanka or you've never sat down with a family from Pakistan, you don't know anybody in that community. All you know is your own people. Much Easier for you to look at, you know, read books and look at movies and TV shows and go look at that, look at how they live. It's different. You know, we, Catalina Hernandez from EY on the show last month with her colleague Matt Jeffrey in EY and Catalina talked about how she grew up as a Colombian immigrant into the United States. And she faced, you know, that kind of racism, essentially, you know, where people would make, you know, small comments, snide comments, remarks, you know, and this is in large firms and, and so on, so forth that she worked in. But she, she kind of said, you know, she was obvious that she was different and people had a different attitude. They didn't see her as just another person, another person in their twenties who started the firm. She was the Colombian girl, you know, and that, that's, you know, you're the, you're the Indian worker, you're the Sri Lankan worker, you're the, you're not the same. It's just pulling that label on somebody. I think it comes from just, it comes from just not having the exposure. I, I don't think people are bad inherently, but if you haven't had that exposure, it's very difficult, it's very difficult to, to get over that. I think there's, the more we can do to try and increase that exposure. Is. Is important. We've got someone supporting you. Ryan Grogan is posting on LinkedIn thinking he's thought long and hard about boycotting the World Cup. Big football fan travel to Rio de Janeiro of the World cup in 2014. But, you know, again, making people think about, you know, how can he enjoy the World cup while being aware of the thousands who lost their lives?

And to Ryan's point, you know, John, Johnny, it's not an either or proposition for me. I absolutely agree with you. The proximity is extremely important. The sitting down and the breaking of bread and sharing of conversation and story, extremely important. Understanding culture and how you move, don't move things you believe in, absolutely important. But we cannot dismiss and minimalize the impact of capitalism. Qatar is enjoying and benefiting from the World cup from a capitalistic standpoint, they may use a different phrase, but the bottom line is there's a huge influx of revenue that is going to come into that country. And if we now began to say, look, I'm not supporting the World cup, you can build all of the stadiums that you want, you can do all of the road improvements that you'd like, you can throw up all of the inventory in these businesses, it's all going to be for not because of how you have treated the workers that are coming into your country, building all of this up. It should not be an either or proposition.

So you're right. Like you talk about, you know, we had Salma on the show a while ago talking about being an ally. FIFA need to be an ally to the workers who have been killed and go, we have the power just to stand up on your behalf. We have the. We have the. We can exert our weight and control over a whole country to go, do you know what? Bring in regulations, increase minimum wage. You don't get the World cup, unfortunately. And you know, you probably don't have the knowledge and background of a torrent because it's not, you know, as big in the US But FIFA have been exposed as an unbelievably corrupt institution who don't seem to give a damn about anything is the reality of it. That's, that's come out in the last few years here backhanders to get the. We. You buy the World Cup. That's how it works. That's how, how it's kind of played out in the press over the last couple of years. It's not about the best country with the best human rights record gets the World cup. Quite the opposite towards.

Yeah, yeah, no, which, which is why I say we, you know, at, at the ground level, we have to exert our voice. We have to exercise that voice utilizing social media platforms. Like, if every single person watching this broadcast today found that story and tweeted it out, sent it to their social networks, their social network sent it on, we began to build some sort of digital momentum and awareness. You know, we have, you know, a couple thousand listens on Crazy and the King. That's not enough. We need, we need every single person. So we're not raising the story because it's something that we are glamorizing. We're raising it for. For awareness. I'm not suggesting that you give up on the World cup, but I am suggesting that we hold them accountable. If we can't get the governing body to do it, then we have to do it. It's incumbent upon us.

Well, from the US To Ireland, Qatar, let's go to China. Next, I want to touch on our last news story this week. Torn. And this is from a site called Protocol and quite a controversial argument where they argue misogyny at Alibaba and Baidu, the struggle of China's female tech execs. This is a really interesting one because it talks about how China has probably Led the world technically on, let's call them diversity stats from a gender perspective in terms of female participation in the workforce and tech, in management, in leadership and boards. If you look at those numbers on their own, you're going good on China. You're nailing it. We need to look to China as the example, but in the, the detail. This is what the author Shenlu seems to be uncovering. The detail is different. Tell me, tell me about the detail you read into this. That's really happening, according to the author.

In China, that men are like, full of. All around the world.

Pretty much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, there is no other way. It, you know, again, we are careless. Our machismo, our, you know, feeling as if we can just simply walk into a room and just whatever it is that we want, we have access to. There's something, there's something wrong when, when that is no matter, like literally, Johnny, we can put men behind curtains and just have them speak and not see them. And no matter, undoubtedly, the, the air in our being is going to show no matter where we are in the world. No matter where we are. And so, you know, I think about this. I think about, you know, one of the questions that we'll talk about, you know, something we'll talk about later around, you know, DNI and how does it look around the world? It shows up differently. You know, I think so much of it is centered around what's happening here in North America. But, you know, for workers over in China, for women to feel, you know, sexism is running rampant and they probably don't approach it like corporate America, corporate companies do here, like unconscious bias training in China. What the hell is that? Like, they're not doing that. You can go to China Daily, the, the major newspaper in that country, and if you type in the words diversity, inclusion, equity, racism, sexism, you will barely find stories on their major newspaper. Unlike if you go to the Guardian or you go to the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post. We talk about it. They're not even talking about it. And then the stories that they are talking about in their newspaper have something to do with like Dolce and Cabana or they want to talk about Meghan Markle's interview. So I just think that, again, it's simple. It sounds simple, but men just have to do a better job. And if men understood how to show up better. I'm not saying that we have to release, you know, that. What do you call it? That, that a mentality. I forgot what it's called for men you can, we can be as powerful as we are. You know, I'm a charismatic individual. I got great energy. Show up as we are, but still be respectful. It's not that hard for us to do.

Yeah, I think that's, that is probably going back to the first article, which is the, a point that really just landed with me reading that is that, you know, that others seem to think, because I, I, you know, I have never thought this way. It seems that others, many, many people think that diversity, equity and inclusion is about the awareness and telling people what it's there and it would all fix its, fix itself and that it's, it's, there's a risk of we're trying to homogenize everyone to be more like we already are. So it's kind of like, you know, this is the way we are, which is the. No, certainly in the US and Europe, the white male driven version of the world. And everyone really needs to just get on the ship, get on the bus with that. And as opposed to going, hang on a second, we need to all take a step to the right or the left, whatever way you want to go and change. Everyone needs to change to a new version that is right for everybody. Others shouldn't assimilate to what, what the heck. We have this white male dominated view of the world and running organizations. We can have white males, we can have black females, we can have all sorts of people in this. But it's not one world that we all lock in. There's a new version and it's built on that, that dignity piece on, on equity. And when you, when you, you know, I've read, tried to see this over the last few years, even in my actions, you know, as a leader, where you're kind of going, right, how do I act in a more inclusive way? Whether, you know, I'm not thinking about how do I act more inclusively for the person who's, you know, from India in the room or the black person or the woman. I'm going, hang on a second. How do I act in an inclusive way? It doesn't matter. You look at the international piece of it. There's all, as you said, there's loads of different angles in different countries where they prioritize things. But truly being inclusive in that mindset of, of dignity, it. You ignore all those different labels because that doesn't matter. It's just getting, being fair, being equitable, you know, treating people with dignity.

Let me, let me tell you, Johnny. So I love men's scents, I love cologne Love it. I actually purchased my cologne from this particular store where the owner is from Pakistan. And it probably took about a year and a half, two years of my being a customer before I was comfortable asking him a question. And the question was, in your country, it's not appropriate for me to touch your wife. So when I would walk in the store, I'd shake his hand. He'd always bow. I'd bow. You know, just. It's part of. It's part of who I am in terms. There's nothing to it for me, but I would notice that the wife would always be afar. She'd be a jar. She's never really within proximity of. Of me. And it took a moment for me to be comfortable enough to feel like I'm not another patron. And after two years of me being torn, now getting invitations to the family wedding. So I'm going to the wedding of his son. I went to the wedding of his daughter. I was able to ask that question. And the question was really out of pure, genuine curiosity, like, I want to just make sure I'm not being disrespectful. Is there something that I should be doing when I walk into the store to show gratitude and presence of your wife? I didn't want to ignore her. I knew I wasn't supposed to touch her. But I'm. I'm trying to learn, is there something more or different that I should be doing? And he said, no. He said, you're fine. You're perfectly fine. It's that curiosity. It's not because he was Pakistani. He could have been anyone. I try to figure out, like you just said, how do we be more human in all of our scenarios? That's purchasing cologne. It could be a restaurant. It could be with a driver inside of an Uber in a different city. I'm always trying to figure out and watch the nuance of the people that I'm around. How is it that I can show deference and connectedness to who they are as a human without patronizing them, without making them feel like they are a project, they are a formula, if you will. I want people to feel human when they are around me, and that's what I endeavor to do.

I think that's maybe something that's got lost in all of the. Not all, but men. Most are a lot of the DNI initiatives that, you know, we're trying to highlight people all the time. You know, look at that part of the community, that part of the business that we're not doing enough for, etc. And that is almost dehumanizes them. It makes them stand out. And you're like, shine this light on them. But not necessarily in a good way. As opposed to kind of just building more community, building more trust, building that mutual respect, encouraging curiosity, as opposed to making people fearing. Because with some of the efforts that I, corporate America, and certainly in corporate Europe, let's say, has initiated, it's made people fearful of asking more questions because they're going, I'll ask the wrong question. So you know what? I'm not going to ask any questions. We have someone from a different culture has joined my team. I'm just not going to ask her anything because I'm afraid that it's. I'll get into trouble because I watched that training. Apparently I've got some bias. I don't know what, I'm going to get in trouble for it. So I'm just going to shut my mouth. That's the opposite of what we need, isn't that?

Yeah, A.B. absolutely the opposite. And everyone comes with some degree of a sixth sense, a seventh sense. I know what mine is. Mine is, it's about humans.

It's.

I recognize when people are in environment and they're not speaking. I recognize when people feel like they're retreating from a conversation. They may very well be visible right here, but I could tell that something about them is disconnected, something may be happening. Personally, I say it often, people don't build your culture in your organization. That culture starts in their circumstance, in their condition. They bring all of that to the equation. So it's important for me to understand what did Johnny wake up experiencing in his wonderful family? Was it something that could have possibly been going on inside of, you know, the organization that he's bringing to the conversation? Not that you displayed any of that, but I am always keen and in tune like I am real time with individuals, movement, the thinking, their thought, their energy. Because I'm trying my best to make sure that, you know, you are seen. Like when we hear the phrase I don't see color, well, how the hell don't you see color? You see all this chocolate right here? You see this handsome chocolate? You see it? I know you see it. I need you to see it. You know, I want you to see who I am. I don't want to be invisible. I don't want to make people feel invisible. And you're right, Johnny. I think that we've lost, you know, behind the charts, behind the HR technology, behind all of the people analytics and the employer branding. We've Lost the part around humanity. Just show up and be a human and trust me, you will find yourself far better along in this journey.

So. So why do you think, Torren, as we begin to kind of come to a close, why do you think some of the. Maybe we touched on a couple of international stories here. Why don't they get as much traction? You know, why is it, why is it so dominated by the US narrative, which is from my experience, largely about two things, which is gender and race, when there are so many other areas and so many issues to deal with and maybe not even issues we talked about, just the kind of common humanity. Why do you think these international stories and international issues don't get as much traction these days?

Yeah, I don't know, Johnny, and I knew you were going to ask me this, so I don't want to seem as if I'm just a smart, all knowing individual, but I went out and I pulled the top 10 newspapers around the world. You know, of course I mentioned the Guardian earlier. They do a great job of talking about DNI related issues. If you go to their site and do a quick search, you'll find articles that are about things that are happening over in Europe as well as things that are happening in the U.S. china Daily didn't do a great job in any way about talking about what's happening in China. They focused most of the stories and there were only just a few that I could find, but they were all North American centric. The Times of India reflected more, reflected more on North American stories. I looked at the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, American stories. The Ashi Shimbun in Japan, Japan American story. So, you know, I don't know why it is that we focus so much so around the world on what's happening here in North America. You know, I know, listen, we provide a great deal of commentary and comedy. You know, when you start to look at some of the things that we talk about, some of the ways that we act out here in the US But I believe if we go to any of these geographies, they have just as much to talk about, whether it be classism, whether it be things around socioeconomic status. I think about a Jewish friend of mine who, you know, participated in a session I did a couple of years ago and he talked about, you know, how in his community he's considered the black sheep. So it's, it happens wherever we are. I think it's easier globally to just focus on America. Let's just talk about their. We ain't got to talk about ours, let's just talk about theirs. And, and it makes better sense. Sensational headlines, you know, who wants to talk about the misogyny and the sexism that's in plants all across, you know, China? We won't talk about that. Let's talk about what's going on in America. So once again, I think it's incumbent upon us and with all of the tools that we have access to social media, even with a restrictive government, I think it's incumbent upon us to figure out where is it that we are going to submit to sacrifice. I need to speak up in my respective geography, enough is enough. And if the chorus of us began to speak up wherever we are. Yes, I, I understand. I'm not trying to be reckless in my conversation, Johnny. I see what's happening in Myanmar. I see that. I understand that when people speak up, some individuals are going to lose their life. But that's been a part of our history, the civil rights era. People lost their life. People have lost their life in every other country, every other war or conflict. It happens across the globe. We can't allow that fear to stop us from colliding together and saying enough is enough. Whether it be classism or racism or caste system, we need to be dealing with these issues in our respective countries. And I believe people like you and I are going to do that.

Yeah. Torn, We've committed and just to share with our audience, we committed to work together on some projects. We start the summer and hopefully continue until it needs to stop, which hopefully is never. We're going to try and shine a light on more of the international issues around equity and inclusion and the different stories and do so through the lens of the stories of those afflicted, to humanize those stories, to bring folks closer to the people behind the stories, behind the trends, behind the labels as well. So we can shine a light and then give people the tools to try and, you know, be more human in the way they work, the way they lead, the way they are a colleague, the way they manage, the way they are allies for folks as well. And, you know, I think it's going to be an interesting journey. There's many, many aspects that we'll hopefully try and get to. And we'd love to hear from any folks who'd love to kind of shine a light on a story that they think is important in their part of the world or are their life that they think we should be sharing with, with others.

Yeah. And you know what? And that's a great end of show call to action. I want every single individual that's watching, go find one of the stories that we talked about today, put it out there on one of the social media platforms and tag me so I can share it. And the challenge that I've been giving people in 2021, Johnny, and I'm going to be consistent about this, the challenge that I have is I want you to post these types of stories and see how many people in your network like them, share them, comment on them, or is it that they only comment on entertainment buffoonery shenanigans? Challenge the individuals in your network to think differently, to get a different algorithm to be more curious about what's happening as it relates to other human beings. So find a story. If it's not one of the three that we, we covered, you find a story, put it out there on one of the social media platforms, tag me, and I promise you I'm going to share it because we don't have enough people in this particular fight. We need all of you and more.

Yeah. In a week where folks might be tempted to post an opinion or a comment about the royal interview on Monday, as one of, as one of my team said, a billionaire interviewing millionaires about how hard life is for them just doesn't ring terribly true. Maybe we need to focus on stuff that actually matters that is a little bit bigger in terms of its impact. Some of the stories we've talked about today and some others that are out there, how can you use your voice and are you using it for something that's frivolous are something that can actually do some good? Torn, I'm going to ask you to close maybe with a piece of advice. You've left two pieces of advice on our shortlist so far in our 43 odd episodes. I'm wondering if you can leave us one more today.

So 17 million people watch that billionaire interview those millionaires. Probably the most watched show here in the US since the Super Bowl. And what I would say is I absolutely agree with the teammate who raised it. I didn't watch it and I'm not casting, you know, dispersion on any of those who did. But my question and challenge to you is what do you do now? Now that you've seen or heard what they had to say? What do you do now? What is it that you do now that you've heard Johnny and I exchange, you know, covering these particular stories? What do you do differently now? And so if you're not willing to raise your voice, then you are complicit. You are a part of the issue. And so the last thing that I'm going to say is bad will be the day for any man or woman when they become absolutely contented with the thoughts that they are thinking, with the deeds that they are doing, with the life that they are living, when forever beating at their soul is some great desire to do something more, to be more, to give more, because you are a child of the most high God, do something different.

On that note, Torrin, thank you. It's always great to have family back on the show. We'll have you back again soon. Torren, thanks for joining us. Next week we're going to be having a week off because it is St Patrick's Day in Ireland. Speaking of different cultures. We won't be painting the town green, we won't be dyeing the river in Boston or in New York green or whatever usually goes around around the world for St. Patrick's Day. We'll be wearing green locked in our homes here in Ireland as we continue our lockdown for a few more months. But please do rejoin us in two weeks time and that's going to be on the 24th of March, same time, 4pm UK time, which will be 11am on the east coast of the US, 8am on the west coast. We're going to be talking about inclusion and cohesion, leadership in a time of change. And Simon Hague, who's co founder of Inclusion and Leadership, who's from Ireland, is going to be joining me on our show next in two weeks time to talk about leadership in a time of change. How does that look? And Simon's and being an expert in this and lectures on this and writes about this and broadcasts on this regularly on LinkedIn and elsewhere and in universities and in corporates, has got a wealth of experience and knowledge. Fascinating individual to hear. I'm looking forward to Simon bringing the conversation on a bit further further to talk about the role of leadership in driving more inclusivity. So join us in two weeks time on the 24th of March. Until then, Lafaylo Project and I'm going to wish you in the Gaelical language of Ireland, Sloane Guffaw. And thanks for listening. Take care.