Thank you so much for joining us today. I am Michele Heyward, founder of positive hire where we connect black indigenous and Latin X women who are experienced scientists, engineers and technology professionals to management roles. Today, I'm absolutely excited to kick off this great series of conversations we were having called the equity pursuit. And today to kick it off, we're talking about, really the barriers to progress and the things that white leaders in the workplace should be doing to bring equity. And this all came about because we've been seeing more and more companies celebrating and marketing Black History Month, a Women's History Month, even Equal Pay Day, which is interesting if you if you're on Twitter. And you know what you bought, I'm talking about when it came to, to women's Equal Pay Day. And so today, I'm really excited to dig into why there are so many barriers to progress and how can White management and leaders really push past those barriers. So joining us today we have Jesse Santana and Jess McFarland so just so you know, you're gonna say Jessie, and Jess, because we might have a panel have a Jess but one escena Jess with two answers, and it's gonna be really interesting. So today, just take it we got a Jesse and a Jess, and we're happy to have both of you. So Jesse, if you can introduce yourself first and then we'll go to Jess.

Thank you so much, Michelle. I'm so excited to be here and part of this conversation. So my name is Jesse CYN. Santana disease, I'm Diana. My pronouns are she, her and ADA. I am an organizational culture strategist. I focus on developing inclusive and culture driven leaders to build legacy and create impact by focusing on CO creating spaces of intentional inclusivity and fierce belonging. So I'm so just glad to be here and in this space with both of you, all of you.

And hi, everyone, I'm Jess McFarlane, I use she her pronouns, I'm really glad to be here. Thanks, Michelle, for inviting me. I call myself a racial equity consultant. So I help organizations and individuals live out their values of equity and how they're showing up day to day with a race centered, race conscious approach.

Thank you both for being here. So first question I have for both of you. Should organizations and companies be celebrating things like Black History Month, Women's History Month, women's Equal Pay Day? Or not? Like what what what are your takes on that, and I'll start with Jesse.

So, in my opinion, absolutely. 100% commemorative days should be sub celebrated. However, they should be followed with action. Because if you're celebrating a commemorative day, if you're making this public announcement that you're you have equity standards that you're about inclusion, it needs to be followed by action. And it needs to be followed, not just in reflected in your behavior, change your learnings, but also reflected in your systems, and reflected in your policies and accessibility, and is everyone have equal access and opportunity to all that you offer, including your clients and those other other stakeholders outside of the internal ones as well.
And I would just add in thinking about who is most impacted in our workplaces, and by these commemorative days, so I agree, Jesse, that these sorts of commemorations can be really powerful, really to, you know, create an environment of belonging but you know, celebrating LGBTQ pride, right and affirming LGBTQ identities in the workplace or celebrating Black History Month. But I'm also thinking about if there's that gap between declarations and action. Because I have a background in psychology. So I'm always thinking about sort of what's the what's the psychological impact, and there's a term or a concept known as the stress of racial disappointment, and that is where it's sort of this gap between making a statement and lack of action can actually be more stressful and more harmful for folks in marginalized groups than if you didn't make the declaration at all right, cognitively and emotionally. It's easier for us to deal with someone who says, you know, Black History Month is not important to me, right? It's actually more difficult to deal with someone who says, Yes, Black History Month, and we're not doing anything to make sure that, you know, we're following through with equity and belonging for our black employees. So it's really important, as Jesse said, to follow that up with action, and so that you don't create more stress and more harm internally.

I absolutely agree. I can remember early on in 2008, after the murder of George Floyd having a roundtable and some attendees saying how their employers didn't say anything. And it said as they should, because we know who we work for. And they knew as want to be allied, so they felt not good, but they knew exactly where that employer stood. And so it was really, really important. And it was others whose employers came out, made a statement, they didn't even like the statement, they didn't address really what was happening. And so the message fell flat just from the beginning, because some organizations felt pressured to make a statement, when, like you said, it was better not to say anything. And so let's let's go into that, what should organizations be doing? Like they've done these celebrations? Jesse? What should they be doing? After celebrating? And because you brought up something very important, like you're in the education phase, but you've been in education phase as well, for two years? So what should organizations be doing?
Yeah, I think that it's really important to not sit in the overwhelm in the information overload. Because a lot of people, you know, the book clubs are great. They, you know, a lot of authors are getting lots of buzz around their books, and it's amazing supporting those authors. But the reality is that if you're not taking a systemic approach, if you're not taking a one step at a time, what is our strategic plan look like, for implementing these things into our workplaces? Thinking about psychological safety? Thinking about? What what marginalized identities we already have within our employee networks, and how to support and facilitate their well being? And also, how do we include other others into the conversation? That's also really important. So I think that a lot of times people are just sitting in that overwhelm and afraid to take one step forward. Because they're, they're, they're, they're afraid of the misstep, right? They don't want to come across as being tone deaf, or they don't want to come across as not doing the right thing. But if we do nothing, then what is that? How is that different than the 40 plus years that diversity and inclusion has been a topic of discussion for organizational development, it's been around for a long time. But it's only now recently that people are actually paying real attention to it. And it's a lot of societal pressure. Because we live in different different times, however, that that pressure, and the release of that pressure by taking some form of action doesn't necessarily reflect that transformative change that organizations need to have. A lot of organizations were really focused on that diversity pipeline. But I always like to say that you can invite people over if your house is dirty, and a lot of organizations houses are filthy. So first, we need to like look at what we have in place, and improve upon that process. And then we can start focusing on recruitment and retention practices that actually will be effective for marginalized identities.

Thank you so much, Jesse. Jess, what are your thoughts about this?

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with everything that Jesse just said. And I think what's coming up for me, as I'm thinking about how you framed this series, in this conversation, Michelle, which is really looking at the role of white leadership and white management. And so for me, I would say, an important place to start is to examine one's role. People often examine their role as a leader right in the organization. But I would say that you have to examine your role as a white leader, what does it mean for you to be a white person in leadership? And if you're doing that work and reflection, then that will move you along the path? And if you feel like I don't know what it means that I'm a white leader, I don't know why that question is relevant. I would encourage you to get support around that and to really work with someone who can help you to bring a lens of what it means to be a white leader to the organization because we know that the racial dynamics are there and they matter, right? We can't be colorblind. That's what You know, one of the big revelations, I think that's come out for folks in the past two years is that we can't pretend anymore that racial dynamics aren't operating in our day to day work, right. So I think that's an important place to start is examining one's role as a white leader. And then to work through, Jesse touched on this, but I spent a lot of time talking about the anxieties, specifically, the racial anxiety that can come up for white leaders in being worried about doing things wrong, right and taking the wrong action. And there's a lot of fear about that. And an important piece of that is really working through and naming that, you know, it's okay to have that worry about, I'm worried about doing the wrong thing. But the problem is that we allow that to get in the way of taking any action at all right. And so I can say more on that. But I'll just stop there. Yeah, back to you, Michelle.
Thank you both for that. And I love how you brought up, these are the actual things that are stopping you or slowing you down. But but really, you have to, like write it down. Like so many things, it's the things that are in your head, that keep you from really progressing. And once you write them down, and you address them, they can show up very differently. And oftentimes, they're just literally it's the story you're telling yourself in your head. And so that's really where the power is. I want to go to the next question was, which is What does white management or leadership have? What impact do they really have when it comes to the stress of racial disappointment? In Oregon, in organizations? Because that was something you you brought up? Justin, I really want to hone in on that for a while. Can you define that and really talk about it a bit more, so we can get a better understanding?

Yeah, so just to be clear, it's essentially the the psychological and emotional impact that can come from being disappointed, you know, folks not following through on on what they're declaring, right? So talking the talk, but not walking the walk. And so that can result in employees, bipoc employees, in particular, feeling really disappointed, like, you know, I thought that you were committed to these actions, essentially, I thought I could trust you. And now your actions are not aligning with your words. And so that results in mistrust. And, you know, can really undermine one's sense of belonging, but also one sense of, sort of, you could you could use the term, I just use this psychological safety within the workplace.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that, it's also important to reflect on the fact that a lot of organizations have not necessarily built that trust and rapport with their employees. You know, oftentimes, when people leave an organization, and they're asked, Why are you leaving, they generally share? Well, I'm doing it for this, you know, this better experience that I am hoping I will get in this next organization. But beyond that, generally, people unless they had an atrocious experience, don't necessarily share all of the details. And it's probably because of that report. It's, you know, absenteeism is related to the fact that employees are not necessarily engaged at work. And so when you have people that don't show up, are you asking questions around, you know, what you're doing doing in order to make sure that people are feeling empowered and engaged at work? Or are you just attributing it to other factors? And so a lot of times, we're not even asking the right questions, to get to the right answers. And sometimes I feel leaders, because they're afraid to just like, dig deep, and be honest and authentic in this way. Because they have that that barrier and that that that point where they need to, you know, assume leadership and what does leadership look like and whatever tropes are running around in people's heads, about what a leader looks like. It often prevents people from having that that trust in the organization because their leader if there's, you know, greater hierarchy, that leader seems so far away, and the person that you may be reporting to, doesn't necessarily follow the same narrative that the leader may present. However, it hasn't been filtered through all departments, all people leaders. And so it's really important not just about creating a culture that is aware of these things, but a culture that's actively working towards eliminating some of those barriers, and one that is focused on creating that sense of belonging at all levels and not relegating it to an HR, you know, person or department, but everyone is responsible for culture. And that's, you know, an important aspect of the organization.

Thank you so much for that jazz, I want to go back to something you brought up, which was your employees are telling you. They're not telling you why they're leaving, and tying it into what just said, which was stress and racial disappointment and that impact an organization's like, Well, how do we know what they want? And we talk about of employee surveys, the purpose they serve, the power white management and leadership leaders have when they have those surveys, and they have those responses, and also the responsibility that they have to actually do something with that information that data, especially as relates to marginalized employees?
If you want to go first, yes, sure,

I can start. I mean, I would just say, I think employee surveys are a really powerful tool. I've been helping organizations implement surveys for about seven years and have found that it's really, really important because often, you know, I'd work with clients with organizations, and they would try to give me a sense of the organization. And the reality is that if you are in a position of power within the organization, it's likely that people aren't really telling you their true experience, especially if you hold dominant identities. And they are part of a marginalized group. And so it's, I think it's really powerful to have, you know, especially when conducted by a third party, but if it is done internally, that can be done as well, just to space for people to truly voice, their experience, anonymously within the organization. But what's really important is, I've seen companies employ or use employee surveys, but then they don't disaggregate the data. And so you're actually obscuring some of the most important information, which is really looking at how individuals of people, people have different identity groups are experiencing the workplace. So it's nice to say, you know, that most of our employees, you know, feel really respected by their supervisor. But then if you disaggregate it, and you see, well, the white employees really feel respected, and the black employees feel less respected. That's a really important findings. So I'm a big advocate of surveys as an opportunity for employees to actually, you know, have a voice. But then to your point, Michelle, you can't just leave it there. So it's not just about gathering information and taking that, especially his leadership, holding on to it and saying, Okay, now we have information there that's used to inform strategy, as Jesse was talking about earlier, building out a strategic plan based on those findings. So yeah, we'll leave it there.

Yeah, I agree. I think that employee surveys are a great tool, I would also include focus groups, and leadership interviews. But all of this needs to be intentional, and we need to do something with it. Because a lot of times, we do all of that work within an organization and find all of these trends and hotspots of information. But it's a little bit like being a doctor and telling someone that you're that these are the things that you should do in order to make things better. But the organization is just there to tick a box because they were audited, or they needed to prove that they were doing something without actually doing anything with it. And that's the unfortunate reality at this moment. For some organizations where they're just doing the heavy lifting of putting all of these systems in place, but not really following through on all of the information that they're doing, because maybe it's too hard. They don't really know where to start. And so it's important to work with individuals or organizations that have that ability to help people walk through what are the exact tools that we should be looking at what are the what are the things that we should be honing in on in the surveys, and making sure that we are being transparent with our internal stakeholders, and making sure that they understand that we're working through this organizational change is not something that happens overnight, but we need to make sure that we're informing those in those invested parties, that we are doing something and we are taking action towards this off One times people like do a lot of this stuff in, you know, in one division or another, and then everybody else, you know if they're working in silos has no idea what's going on. And they're they feel that racial tension, or they feel that tension from the fact that it's just anxiety from ambiguity.

Thank you both for that. But that was definitely definitely insightful. And I can say what comes to mind is because I talk to the employees, right, because that's the community I build a black, indigenous a Latinx women, and it was like we, you know, I gave my feedback, yet they've done none of these things. I've talked to other co workers, who are similar in demographics as them, and they haven't seen any change, either. And they keep coming back with you surveys now. And you know, what, they have an open end. And I said, Well, why do you keep doing these if you aren't going to make any changes, right? Because the employees are seeing this. And so when you're like, well, we don't understand why they're leaving. If you're, you're continuing asking them what they need help with, and, and where their issues in the workplace. And you're not addressing them mine, when Jesse says some things take time, but they're also things that you can do in the interim, to let them know we're working on the longer term things and literally share that plan. Sometimes, so many organizations don't want to share what their diversity equity inclusion plan is for organization, they definitely don't share the numbers. But I can tell you, as a black employee, I can name I remember being the St. Louis office, for a large international engineering, construction and architecture firm, I could name all five black people. And those guys, and that included me and I wasn't even part of that office, we just ended up being renting space. And I was the only black person on my team. And so to really understand, you may be thinking legally, you're hiding the numbers, but you're black and other marginalized employees know what's going on, and they're talking. And so you really aren't changing anything by not disclosing what you're not changing anything, period, which is the point. But you're not hiding anything, because we already talked about it, we already know about it. And so the only person you're trying to save is really yourself. And at the end of the day, you probably aren't doing a great job of that, unfortunately, either. So I want to get into something else. We have a few minutes left, which is really on the accountability side, which is which is often lacking, and it's not there or it's it's pushed in places that generally have limited or no power and limited resources to get this work done. How do we bring about different types of accountability? We see NASDAQ is trying to hold accountability to companies that are listed on NASDAQ, we see certain laws in certain states and counties and cities like California passed a crown act well, you cannot legally say you can't hire me because my hair my afro is not or natural hair is not professional. What can we do around accountability? To get organizations to make these changes? What are your thoughts on that? And I'll start Jesse, like you're ready to go?

Well, I was gonna say to two things to your question. I think that there's still a lot of burden of education and emotional tax expected from marginalized identities to educate everyone else on their identity, instead of other interested parties taking that burden of education onto themselves, in making sure that they're going to, you know, research by and for the groups in question rather than, you know, asking an employee who's openly gay about pride month, or asking a racialized employee about Black Lives Matter. So I think that it's important to, for accountability, make sure that you are, you know, reaching out to organizations or individuals who have thought leadership in these spaces, because there's lots of them now. And that's, you know, a great thing to see. And also do this from a place of humility. We are people at the end of the day, and we are all going to make mistakes. I constantly find myself unlearning as much as I am learning. And I have this lived experience. But this is not necessarily what I was talking about five years ago before I started to do this work, because I didn't feel safe enough in my corporate spaces to be able to do so. And so it's important to understand my journey as much as it is understanding where you find yourself to be. I think that it's to just as point earlier, you know, 80% of people who call themselves allies think that they are an ally. But what does that actually mean? And do you actually know how to be an ally and act an ally ship with someone or group of individuals, but then understanding that when you call yourself an ally, you're still centering yourself, like no one should be calling themselves allies. That is a moniker that's reserved for the community that you act an ally ship with, first and foremost. And a lot of people forget that, because we're all about, you know, especially in North America, we love the eye, and ambition and ownership of, you know, challenges or what we call go getters. But there's a lot of humility in this work. And I think that if we brought more humility to leadership, as opposed to the ego, that this would actually work better and more sustainably and could have far reaching effects. Because the business case has been the business case for a very long time, really, to get past that. And in order for people to understand the reasons why this work matters.

Thank you so much for that, Jess. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, so there's, you know, a lot of talk about accountability. And I think for folks, including for me, when I was first hearing about it can feel really esoteric, and sort of what does that mean. And I'm really inspired by I participated in a workshop led by the People's Institute for survival and beyond. And they talked about writing a personal accountability statement, or within an organization, writing an accountability statement for your team or for the organization as a whole depends on your, you know, your size and scope, but really thinking about who sort of who's impacted by your behavior? And who do you need to be accountable to right, what is the community that you're serving, or that you're supporting you're giving voice to? And if your behavior goes sideways, or you don't follow through on your actions, who is actually most impacted by that? And to set up a mechanism where, how are you ensuring that you're receiving feedback, or you're being held to what you're saying? So I'll just say, for me, personally, you know, I'm an independent consultant, right, I work for myself. And so there could be, of course, in my work, I'm trying to be accountable to specifically bipoc employees, right when I'm working with institutions or organizations on equity and belonging, but I'm also thinking about I'm in close partnership, I use it usually collaborate with another independent consultant. And we try to have cross racial pairing. So usually, my co facilitators are black women. And thinking about that my work and how I show up is I also want to be accountable to my black female colleague, right. So how am I engaging in, you know, in collaborations with our clients? How am I showing up for my colleague, and really, with a mindfulness around that across racial dynamics? So I've been inspired by engaging in that work with the People's Institute to really write a personal accountability statement, right? What does it mean for me to be accountable? And how will I make sure that I'm being accountable, so it needs to be really action oriented, and clear and specific with the community that I'm, you know, supporting, lifting up with them in mind, not with me and sort of, I want to make sure that I achieve X, Y, Z, right. It's really about keeping the impacted folks at the center.
Thank you for that. And just you bring up a point I want to go into which is oftentimes, especially white men don't see a place for them. It diversity, equity, and inclusion work. And so I want to know, what role does being a white leader in an organization take when you're focused and looking at Dei? And I'll start with chess, and then I'll come to you Jesse.

Yeah, I would just say, as a white leader, you have a lot of power. And so I think there is there can be strength in that. And I absolutely, personally think that there's a lot of room for white men in this work. I would love to see more white men being outspoken about racial inequities about patriarchy, right. Because you have less to lose, right? There's less for you're gonna get less criticism, and then folks who have marginalized identities and so you can take you can push the envelope more. So if you are a white man, you know, on a board or on a leadership team, with other men with other white men. It would be fantastic if you were bringing them in, you know, and really helping them to see the importance of This work.

Thank you. And for that, Jesse, what are your thoughts?

So I completely agree with Jess, I think that it is really important to have people who have that, that perspective to be a part of the conversation as well. And it's also understanding that when you are a white leader, you have a greater sphere of influence than somebody who may not have that position. And also, because of the societies that we live in, you have also a greater sphere of influence. So it's also really important to, to lend that sometimes, you know, working in ally ship means giving the stage to somebody else, or offering somebody else the microphone, so to speak. And so it's important to understand that you have that ability and power to to share and bring other perspectives into the conversation into the room. And it's especially important, when, to justice point, when you sort of have less to lose, when you are the one person who's talking about these things, and you are that identity, it's seen less as. And understanding that that that was my lived experience, I didn't want to be the Latina talking about these things. And so it's important to to know that you have that power and use it in a way that uplifts us. All right.

Thank you both for joining me today. I love those answers. I absolutely agree. I love the personal statement part, as well as what you said just about the internal accountability. So everybody, if you're out there, and you're like, the barriers to progress, like why are we not seeing action, start with yourself, then look in your organization, and make those commitments. But more importantly, if your order can tie in accountability, some of you are already seeing that accountability being tied in from organizations like NASDAQ or government, again, as well as your board and stakeholders, and they're publishing it in your 10k report. But at the bare minimum, and it's not even, it's not the bare minimum. But on an individual level, which is the most powerful, what are your account before and like just said, as a white man, the EI does include you and your voice and your power has to be part of this dynamic in order to make progress and make change. And I'll say this, oftentimes, I find when I'm talking to white cisgendered men, they see dei as taking things away from them. And I want I want them to reflect on that. Imagine if you're fearing having something taken away from you. Imagine what it was like to be taken away from your homeland, from your country, come across the ocean, not knowing where you're going to never ever being returned. Imagine having the child you bear, the spouse that you jumped the broom with and culturally is what we do in black communities to jump through and we get married, literally separated from you for a price. Imagine living that fear every single day. And so the fear that you have is losing something intangible, but the fear that we have and have for generations and losing those around us, their lives and the ability to literally have them as a part of our lives. And so there's always the fear but the reality is, there's so much greater, greater when we all work together to really bring about what is now America and to break apart the systemic, um, policies and procedures and practices that we have in organism in organizations in government that really have to change and, and Jimsy is not waiting for so just to give you some dollars, just an n and i because like we say we've been making a case for it right. And the case still hasn't worked. Globally, companies are paid paying about $10 billion a year for global DNI lawsuits. $600 billion in annual corporate turnover costs, you can justify $600 billion in turnover costs, but you can't justify you know, making this personal level change and accountability and are you looking at $300 million none litigation monetary benefits in the US? As absolutely imagine if that was actually paid to people salary and close the pay gap. So everyone they could sell much for joining us just, um, any any closing thoughts you want to share?

Yeah, you just inspired me and Michelle, which is that I totally hear you on white leadership often worrying about having to give up power. But I would just say that it's helpful to come from that reinforces the mindset that there's not enough, there's not room for everybody. And I would say, it's really helpful to have the perspective that there's enough resources, there's enough for everybody. So you don't have to lose for other people to gain right, we can all be leaders, we can all get what we need. So getting rid of that sort of scarcity mindset, I think is really important. Because it really gets in the way when we're gripping, and we're saying, you know, I'm going to lose something, then that, to me, that's not really living out the life, the the world that we want, right? We don't want people to be in a place of fear and, and worried about losing power, who want to, for everyone to be empowered. So that's a closing thought for me. Thanks.
You're welcome. Jesse. Closing thoughts?

Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth. Your city is definitely not where we want to start. And even just reflecting on why we feel that fear, and why we have these these thoughts in our head, especially when it comes to, you know, unconscious bias of the whole thing. But they're all of these things running around in our heads and wherever we are sleepy, tired, hungry, that's where we used to make decisions that are our baselines. And if we don't do something to acknowledge and mitigate those biases, that's how they show up in the world. And that's how they become a part of our institutions and our systems. And we need to do extensive work in order to reflect the society that we have now in the US, as opposed to the society that was, you know, 400, I don't know how many years ago, it's, it's no longer about an a business case. It's about Are you still going to be relevant? And if that's not a bigger driver than fear of losing out, then you know, to Michelle's point, Gen Z is not waiting for anybody.

Exactly. So where can people find you Jesse? How can they connect with you?

So I am on LinkedIn, I am you can always check out the way we the way hyphen, we work.com or my personal Jessie santana.com. But usually LinkedIn is the way to go. I am trying to really push that as my place to be so yeah, definitely.

And how about you just?

Yeah, I would say the same LinkedIn is a greatt place to find me Jess McFarlane, you can email me Jess MacFarlane. consulting@gmail.com. But LinkedIn is the best place to find me.

See, we have some LinkedIn lovers. I'm number three. So you can definitely find me on LinkedIn as well. But you probably got to spell my name incorrectly. So I'm just gonna but it is Michelle with one l and h e y w ARD so definitely, definitely check us out. Both of you. Thank you so much for joining me today for kicking this off. Jess is coming back for a couple more times. I'm gonna see if I can snatch Jesse back as well. But we will be doing this series for the remainder of 2022 I can't believe it's 2020 I just graduated college the other year. I can tell you um, so everybody, have a great week and we will talk to you soon.

Thanks, Michelle.