Becoming an Ally & Upstander

Announcer:
Live from Boston, Massachusetts, please welcome your host vice president of Allyship and Inclusion for the Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership, Elisa van Dam.

Elisa van Dam:
Hello, welcome. Welcome back for those of you who are able to join our first webinar. Welcome for those who are new. And if you want to go back and see the recording for that, just head to our website at inclusiveleadership.com. I have been chatting with our panelists backstage, and I know we’re going to have such a rich conversation. I don’t want to waste a lot of time before I bring them on. But there are a couple of things that I want to let you know first. So, I’m going to start us off by talking a little bit about our model of the Work with the Inclusive Leader. Just to set some context and provide an overview of how we think about this work. Then I’m going to ask you a couple of polling questions. We’re going to hear from our wonderful panelists. I’m going to have an opportunity for you to ask your questions, because it’s really an important part of this conversation.

Elisa van Dam:
And then at the end, I’m going to ask you to do an exercise, to think about something that you might do. So, a little bit of work on your end, and my promise to you as always is that we’ll end a few minutes before the top of the hour, because giving ourselves time to transition is something I think is really important. So, first let’s talk about this Work of the Inclusive Leader. And in our model we’ve really looked at it at three levels. So, the webinar that we did in September was on this first level of Becoming Aware and the two activities within Becoming Aware are first to think about your own biases. Where are the places where the unconscious ideas that you have about social identities may be having an impact on your decision making or how you’re thinking about things without you even realizing that, that’s happening.

Elisa van Dam:
And in our second action, it’s about thinking about systems and history. And how did we get to where we are here. And how are the ways that we do business, things we just take for granted every day, also having unintended impacts. And providing opportunities for some people and disadvantages for other people, not based on their merit, but based on the happenstances of their birth or other parts of their identities.

Elisa van Dam:
In the second level, we’re talking about becoming an Ally and Upstander. And we’re talking in this case about, how do you support other people, raise up the voices of folks who are in underrepresented groups. Think about belonging. Think about how we’re functioning together as a group so that everyone feels like they can be themselves, that they are valued uniquely for what they bring to the table, that they’re not trying to fit into a box to be like everyone else around here.

Elisa van Dam:
And so that’s what we’re really going to dive into in the rest of today’s webinar. Now in November, we’re going to talk about the third level of action and that is making change. And we’ve distinguished that in two ways. First it’s about sponsorship and we’ve called that out because we know that it’s such a critical way for underrepresented populations to be able to move into leadership positions, have access to opportunities. And this is where you use your political capital, your reputation, your belief in someone to speak for them when they’re not able to be in the room or in a position to advocate for themselves. And also it’s about making change at the systems level. So, going back to the idea of understanding the historical context and the systemic issues. Now that we understand those better, how can we start to change them? How can we make the playing field more level, whether that’s how I run a meeting or changing the whole way that talent management is done within an organization.

Elisa van Dam:
Now underlying these three levels is a really important piece and that’s about reflection and learning. And this is like building any other leadership skill. That you have to try things, look at what happened, get some feedback, evaluate how you might want to do things differently, mess up, fall down, apologize, pick yourself up, keep going with the work. It’s an ongoing thing and we’re all going to get it wrong sometimes. That’s okay. I really try to both give myself grace when I mess up and not beat myself up, but also hold myself to a high standard so that I’m always trying to do better. Always trying to learn. And I invite you to do the same. The last thing I want to say about the model is that it’s written …you do one and then you do two. That’s not how it works in real life, of course. And you can’t stop trying to understand your own biases and the systems that we live in, even as you’re making change.

Elisa van Dam:
And so you’re going to float among all of these activities, depending on where you are. The other thing that will potentially have an impact is which social identity we’re talking about. So, I’ve been working in the gender equity space for more than a decade. I feel pretty good about my knowledge and understanding and ability to be an effective change agent in that space. But there are lots of other social identities that I’m less familiar with. And so I have more work to do around understanding my bias. And then there’s the way all of those identities intersect and interact. You may have heard the term intersectionality to describe that. And that adds another layer of complication and complexity. So, we’re always learning. We’re always reflecting. And we’re always working on building this muscle of inclusive leadership. So, as we dive into a specific focus around allyship and upstanding and belonging, I have a question for you.

Elisa van Dam:
To what extent do you feel a sense of belonging at work? And you’re going to see a poll come up. And I would love you to answer that question in the poll. And then I’m also going to ask you – has someone acted as an ally for you in the past two weeks? So, if we can have that poll as well, and then I’m going to ask a third polling question, and that is, have you acted as an ally for someone in an underrepresented group in the past two weeks? So, those are three questions for you. I’m going to ask you to answer those and I’m going to come back and circle around to share those answers with you later in our time together.

Elisa van Dam:
So, right now, what I want to do, is to ask our panelists to join us. And yes, I’ve been told that you can only see one poll at a time, you’ll see those start to roll out. So, answer them as they come along, but now let’s bring our panelists up so that you get to hear from them. And I’m going to ask each of them to introduce themselves. And I’m going to start with a fantastic Michelle Taylor-Jones. Michelle, can you tell us about yourself and how you think about allyship and upstanding?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
Good afternoon. And thank you so much for inviting me to be with you. I’m Michelle Taylor-Jones, Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Manulife Financial. And for those of you who are not familiar with Manulife, Manulife is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, but we operate as John Hancock in the US. And as Manulife Financial in Canada, Asia, and Europe. I’ve spent about 21 years in my career in many different aspects of business, managing small business banking and recruiting talent management, and now diversity and inclusion. And so this term allyship is not new to many of us, but I think the conversation around allyship elevated post George Floyd. Right after we had that incident, diversity and inclusion elevated to the top of many agendas in corporate America. And you had many allies within companies reaching out to diverse communities asking how can we do more?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
How can we help? And allyship is about education. It’s about leaning in, it’s about learning other communities and their lived experience so that you can really understand and ask what can I do and really be responsive to that answer. And so allyship, in my opinion is really critical in terms of building an inclusive culture, where all our employees can thrive and survive and be their authentic self. And so I’m really excited that allyship is at the top of the conversation because I think there’s a lot for us to explore there as we move throughout our DEI journey.

Elisa van Dam:
Oh yeah, absolutely. And we’re going to talk specifically about what does that really look like? Because I think people are having that conversation, but maybe hesitant or not sure about how to really engage. So, we’re definitely going to talk about about that as we have our time together. But first I want to ask Amri to introduce himself. Amri Johnson, over to you.

Amri B. Johnson:
Thank you, Elisa. It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s a pleasure to be on the virtual stage with all of you. My name’s Amri Johnson. I’m the CEO of a firm called Inclusion Wins. I am committed to choosing humanity as my way of being and helping nations do the same through our consulting practice, through their people and their organizational culture. By training, I’m an epidemiologist. I was in public health for the beginning of my career and I transitioned out of public health with a lens of health equity and moved into the DEI space. I was a pretty bad manager. I became a manager at 27, which was way too early after grad school. And I was not very good it. And fortunately I recognized it and pivoted and started to learn everything I could about leadership and became so enamored that I changed careers and moved from that space into organizational work and specifically around DEI. My firm Inclusion Wins is based in Basel, Switzerland.

Amri B. Johnson:
I am a father of three. Two step kids. They’re 13, boy and girl. And a two and a half year old. Part of the reason that I’m in Basel, and you can see that I don’t have a German accent or a French accent or an Italian accent. I am fully American. I’m from Topeka, Kansas. I’m a writer. I have a book that comes out next year called Reconstructing Inclusion, Making Inclusive Cultures Accessible, Actionable and Sustainable. And I guess the answer to the question of allyship is I think everyone can be an ally. For me, it’s an act of creating bridges and it’s an act of interdependence in solidarity with the so-called other. And obviously there’s oftentimes power differentials there.

Amri B. Johnson:
But I think the fundamentals of understanding and being in solidarity with the so-called other is critical to DEI efforts across organizations and as an ally, for me, that finding the way to create that solidarity is in relationship. It’s in building community. It’s in creating the space for everyone to show up. And doing the things that we need to do every day for each one of us to thrive and for the organizational mission to be accomplished through that thriving. So, that’s how I see allyship. It’s a journey that I’ve been on, both having people ally me as well as me learning to be a better ally to communities that I have less affinity with historically. So, I’m looking forward to going deeper into the conversation.

Elisa van Dam:
I love that idea of solidarity because it has that sort of linked arms, we’re in this together kind of feeling as a opposed to, I think what happens sometimes when people think about allyship, that there is this, let me come in and rescue you feeling, which is very much not what we’re trying to do. So, thank you for bringing that perspective. I’m going to think about that. But now I want to turn to Deve Malladi. Deve, would you so kindly introduce yourself, and talk a little bit about how you’re thinking about allyship these days.

Devendra Malladi:
Thank you, Elisa. And what an honor to be talking about this with such an awesome panel. I hope everyone listening to this is safe and well, wherever you are. My name is Deve Malladi. I’m the vice president with Cisco Systems, and I recently took on a new role to help travels. Its a massive portfolio into everything as a service. But I really think my job is that of being a servant leader and taking care of teams and making that we create the best environments for them to succeed has kind of been my mantra for the last 25 plus years I’ve been in the workforce. I’ve also learned about this very early in my life through my parents who have been fantastic role models, where I learned something very, very interesting about how allyship actually starts with being an ally for yourself and being comfortable in your own skin, accepting what can you bring in. And that actually gives you a lot of strength so that you can then be an ally for someone else.

Devendra Malladi:
And that gave me a lot of strength growing up. And I also thanks to the wonderful companies that I’ve had the pleasure of working in, including Cisco, which has a fantastic culture. I have seen allyship as a strength that togetherness brings us. While we celebrate our differences, what we are really looking at is to bring that differences together so that we can stand for each other’s causes. It’s not just about walking a few steps in another person’s shoes, but even if you don’t have that experience, you’re able to take your empathy and support them in what they’re trying to get done. And there’s such great power in that.

Devendra Malladi:
And to the point that Michelle was making earlier. The world, the communities that we live in and in the communities that we work in have come together in a manner where our own passions, our own desires, our own blind spots, all have to get much, much more clearer for us to be greater. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation and hopefully share some statistics that we’ve been seeing as a company and my own personal experience of how we can do better and where we can get started.

Elisa van Dam:
Thank you. And actually, I’d love you to dive into that a little bit. Can you tell us about how Cisco is thinking about the ways that all of the technology that you have working right now are supporting people in their allyship or in understanding where allyship can play a role?

Devendra Malladi:
Absolutely. And this is where I absolutely love the fact that we redefined and gave more clarity to Cisco’s purpose as a company. It’s not just our diversity and inclusion strategy. But Cisco’s purpose is to power an inclusive future for all, because our business is, yes, about connecting and making connections and networks and security, but it’s critical to inclusivity. From earliest days I think our founders had an idea of how we are able to bring people together using the power of technology. Needless to say, all of us are attending this or participating in this from the comfort of our homes and hybrid workforce is here to stay. And we are the largest provider of the technology around this. And I’ll give you a bit of a peek into some of the data that we’ve managed to gather around all the thousands and millions of hours of meetings that we are doing every day. Approximately just the last one month, 900 million hours of meetings around and in that 48% of the participants did not speak at all.

Devendra Malladi:
So, it’s not just about bringing people into a meeting, it’s how do you then include them into the conversation that becomes very powerful. You also then realize that not everybody wants to talk and include themselves, but they’d like to participate through polls. They’d like to participate through visual inclusion. They also would like online translation because I don’t speak the same language as you. I’m also not in the same time zone as you, your morning might be more exciting than my late in the evening. So, we are actually publishing a lot of information that each individual who’s using our technology can see, are you speaking most of the time in the meetings that you’re using, which I have to admit I was. 67% of the time I was talking more in the meetings than the other ones. But that information gives me power to say, okay, I need to speak less and include more.

Devendra Malladi:
I’m also able to see who is participating more often, who isn’t. What choice of communication they are preferring. And that allows us to actually create allyship in a distributed workforce, because we are now not in an office anymore, or we’re not able to gather anymore for a cause that we want. So, we need to be able to think about this in a distributor force and user technology to do that. So, I just gave one example. I can go on and on Elisa, but there is such power in this insight that we are sharing this with users and actually building more technology that allows us to connect more people and include them into the conversation for you.

Elisa van Dam:
I love that you have that specificity of really the data about how much you’re speaking and how much other people are speaking. And that’s kind of a shocking statistic that almost 53% of people aren’t being heard in the meetings. So, even if we don’t have access to that technology, having that awareness and trying to self-monitor is a really good place to start. And I also want to encourage folks, because unfortunately we can’t hear your voices on the call, but we can hear you in chat. And we would love you to start putting some question for us in the Q&A box. So, please do those things as we continue our conversation. I want to ask Michelle, if you could talk a little bit about how your organization is thinking about belonging and allyship, what are you doing to support those activities and that sense of belonging?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
Sure. And before I pivot in that direction, I just want to speak to some of what Deve just shared. That data is powerful, because when you begin to unpack the data and understand who in the room is not speaking up, you begin to see patterns of behaviors and communities of people that begin a trend in terms of those who are not speaking might belong to a certain diverse population. You can then ask why. Is it that they’re not feeling a sense of inclusion? They’re not feeling as though they’re a part of a culture where they can be their authentic self. If it is not an environment where they feel safe enough to be innovative or ask a particular question. And so I just find that really fascinating to be able to overlay the intersection of that data and DEI, and how to kind of extract that and really begin to put programs and processes in place where all employees can feel comfortable to speak in meetings. So, thank you for that. I think at Manulife, we build an inclusive culture and a culture of belonging by leveraging our ERGs.

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
Like most organizations, the ERGs are grassroots efforts, there are ambassadors to this work. They are pockets of communities where employees go to be their authentic self, to build community and just feel empowered at work to be able to thrive and be their best selves. And so I am proud of the work that we’re doing at Manulife. We continue to elevate and raise the bar. When we talk about diversity in the US, in Europe, in Canada, in Asia, it’s not one that we can brush with a broad brush. But it’s looking at ERGs respective to the regions in which our employees live in. Diversity in the US is not the same as diversity in Europe or diversity in Asia.

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
And being able to create strategies regionally that we can bring employees together within a community that allows them to build that safe space so that they can be their best at work. They can be innovative. We know diversity … innovation drives how we think differently and how we move differently in the marketplace as we leverage our products and services. So, building a sense of strong belonging for our employees is a significant part of our diversity strategy at Manulife.

Elisa van Dam:
So, thank you. And I appreciate very much the sort of macro level view of having ERGs and other of ways for people to connect and not trying to use the same approach everywhere because we know communities are different. I would love us to move to a much more personal, more micro conversation for a bit. And I’m going to turn to Amri. Can you share with us about how allyship has played a role for you or how you’ve experienced allyship as the ally and as the person being allied for?

Amri B. Johnson:
Absolutely. I’m embarrassed to say that being an ally has enriched me more than it probably has those that I’ve built community and relationships with. It’s allowed me to learn more about the nuances of individuals and the identities they represent. And that provides a mirror for me in areas that I’ve often missed the mark. So, you have certain affinities and obviously because of my racial background and my exposure to other communities that I know well. I anchor on those. And sometimes that leaves me with a hole in my cultural intelligence. And so when I can really get it away from being about me, I have a different conversation. The other thing is sometimes I’ve seen people I’ve missed the mark, but they haven’t told me.

Amri B. Johnson:
And so being an ally actually helps me see my own blind spots. And sometimes if, particularly when you’re inside an organization and you’re very senior, people don’t really tell you what’s going on and where you’re missing the mark. And so when you build these relationships and you become an ally in a particular community, people tell you what they see, and they’re a lot more comfortable and they see that you have this willingness to be influenced by them. And as a result, you reduce any potential for people feeling threatened, and therefore you start being able to see what’s really going on under the surface and address it both individually in that particular group and systemically, because if it’s happening in one place, it’s probably happening in others as well.

Elisa van Dam:
So, I’m wondering … Deve, go ahead.

Devendra Malladi:
I absolutely loved what Amri spoke about in terms of looking at the blind spots. Wanted to give a bit of a peek into how it has helped me personally as well. We started this program called Proximity in Cisco, where we said, if you want to be an ally and don’t know where to start. Just organize short meetings, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, with somebody who’s different than you. Just to learn about how they’re experiencing the culture, that overall we’re trying to bridge. Because culture is actually what each individual is experiencing and not … Honestly, I was more petrified to do those meetings than the meetings with agenda, because I was going in there as a student, even though I was trying to be an ally. And one of the first things that got completely blown out of for me was my blind spots.

Devendra Malladi:
Those conversations actually helped me understand my, even though I knew that I had certain biases, I had way more than I’d imagined for somebody who was at actively trying to address them. But each of these conversations actually allowed, and we did thousands of these across the company. What we ended up seeing was A, it helped leaders change their behavior. And recently done a poll, 93% of the time leaders have changed their approach to specific groups that they’re allied with. And I’m going to talk about the African American group, especially because of social justice causes that have come up after George Floyd. We actually, some groups have zero attrition, …been to the Proximity meetings versus other groups that actually had double digit average. The impact of having this blind spot go away was fantastic. We’re still gathering more data as we have thousands of more meetings. But that hit it .

Elisa van Dam:
So, Deve what’s specifics, you sort of scan and you say, here’s somebody I don’t know very well. How do you approach that conversation? What do you do? It’s I think a little easier maybe because Cisco said this it’s a thing you should do, but what if these folks that we’re talking with today are like, okay, it’s a good idea, but how do I start? What would you tell them?

Devendra Malladi:
So, it’s a great question, because all of us VPs had a ton of questions about how to ask a question and shut up and listen. So, the point was A, set the context to say, I’m here to learn how you’re experiencing the culture. And my question to you is how are you enjoying or not our culture? What are the aspects of our culture that you are enjoying? What are the aspects that you’re not and why? And then stay quiet. And we ended up having a simple list of areas, which we started seeing more and more commonly being said. 25% of those meetings ended up with follow up meetings.

Devendra Malladi:
About 20% of them ended up being referred to a newer opportunity or an expanded area. A very small percentage of them did end up also being, hey, we need to address this one immediately. This is a definite no-no in the company. It gave us insights by just having that first conversation. And then we started documenting the questions and the followup actions and then started doing service to say, how do we improve this more and more. We are soon going to publish a white paper for all of you and I’m happy to share that. But I’ll kind of pause there and I hand it back to you.

Elisa van Dam:
All right. So, we are starting to get questions from our audience and I do want to move to those. But first I want to actually put up our poll answers. Thank you for participating in these polls. So, we’re going to start out with our question on a sense of belonging at work. And what we’re seeing is that most people feel a pretty good amount of belonging at work, which is great to see. We are actually doing the analysis of the data that we collected on a much longer survey on belonging. Some of you may have taken the survey for which much thanks. And it aligns pretty closely with this, that for the population that we’re talking to, which I want to be clear is not representative everyone everywhere. People do feel a pretty good sense of belonging. And there is a pretty significant group that does not. And so that’s a very important opportunity for us to think about as individuals trying to be an ally and create more belonging around us, and people who work in organizations that have systems that maybe could do more to create a sense of belonging.

Elisa van Dam:
So, thank you for that. I’d love to now show how people are, the poll around acting as an ally. Have you acted as an ally for someone from an underrepresented group in the past two weeks? And our answers are 71% say yes. A few people are not sure, which fair enough. And a smaller percentage say no. So, hopefully you all will be able to share with us what you’re doing as allies. And going to ask you that later in the chat, or you can put it in now. And also that we can give you some more ideas. And then our last poll was around whether someone’s acted as an ally for you.

Elisa van Dam:
And so that actually we’ve got 66% of folks saying that someone’s been an ally for you in the last two weeks. So, that’s a really, really good thing to see. And for other folks, we will hopefully give some more thoughts on how you can increase allyship around you. All right. So, now I want to go to our audience questions and Angela is asking, “Can we de-center the American experience and talk about some examples of allying with someone from another culture?” And I know that all of you have experience working across multiple cultures. So, I’m curious, do you have examples of allyship across cultures?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
I can start here and I will share with you, I’ve been with Manulife for about a year. And the George Floyd experience, as many of you know, happened in the US and really affected most of north America. So, it affected our US and our Canadian colleagues. But I was quite surprised and pleased to find out that it was also affecting our Asian colleagues as well. To the point at which race, which is often not talked about in Asia was once again a topic of discussion. And so I think we have to be mindful that although some of the activities that happened in the world are regional, they do play out and affect us on a global stage. And being able to have conversations around allyship, and belonging, and diversity, and inclusion, albeit race in one region of the world or LGBTQ and gender in another part of the world. It is a universal topic that brings us all together.

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
And I think it’s important for you to be mindful and not shy from conversations that don’t happen in specific regions and assume that, that conversation is not happening in other parts of the world or affecting other parts of the world. I think it’s important for us to realize that when we have Asian hate in the US, it’s not just specific to the US, but our Asian colleagues as well are supportive and responsive to our agenda around combating hate and such. And so I wanted to make sure that I put that here and that we understand that it’s a universal conversation.

Elisa van Dam:
Yeah. I really appreciate that. Deve or Amri, other thoughts on de-centering the American experience and thinking about allyship more broadly?

Amri B. Johnson:
I can jump in. I think the notion of de-centering. I think we’ve heard that a lot this past year in terms of de-centering the American experience, de-centering whiteness. And my framing has been, what do we want to center on? And so are we centering humanity. And if humanity is the center point, then our notion of ally is to be constantly scanning for where inequity might be happening and how we can use our power to create this solidarity or Ubuntu, and understand the interdependence in our organizational life. And I think that that’s hard because most are not structured for that to be rewarded in a way that’s consistent. And so I think my experience of…to folks outside of the framework that’s mostly Western, is I’ve worked in global companies and in a global company, you need to give voice to those who might not have the same access that you do.

Amri B. Johnson:
And so my allyship wasn’t always so close, but it was oftentimes in those places where, I did a project with some colleagues in our Hyderabad Office when I was at Novartis. And this team that worked with me was so incredibly brilliant. And the way sometimes I heard some folks interacting with them was like we’re in a home office. And it was very subtle, but I was aware enough of it to say, hey you all, these folks are some of the best in the company. I don’t care where they’re located. And if they were here, they would be the best. If they were in the US, they would be the best. I was in Basel at the time when I was saying this. And if you want them to feel like they can contribute to your projects at the highest level, because they have some choice, because everybody’s coming to them for how good they are.

Amri B. Johnson:
You need to really get to know them and see what their capabilities are and ask those questions and with respect and dignity so that your relationship could be solidified and both of you could benefit from it. And those types of conversations where you move out of people having a certain framework, because of where somebody is geographically, or where someone is in organizational hierarchy, that’s where I think the humanity and under dependence in this, I am because you are, is critical. And so that’s probably been my best experiences when I’ve been working across the globe. And I saw subtleties that were getting in the way of people thriving or feeling like they were humanized in every interaction that we had. And most of the time it was subtle that somebody unintentionally dehumanize someone, but to point it out was the role that I was able to learn and take as an ally in those situations.

Elisa van Dam:
Thank you. Yeah.

Devendra Malladi:
What you said in terms of what do you want the center on? Because our biggest challenge always is allyship without, I call this, allyship without direction is meaningless. You need to work towards an outcome. You can’t just say, I’m showing up. What are you showing up to solve for? And I lived and worked in Asia for 16 years, I’m back in the US now after a 16 year gap. And most of large global corporations, bulk of their workforce is outside of the headquarters. And mostly in Asia in that region. And we all suffer from what I call GIBO, great intentions, bad outcomes. And the simple ones are, hey, I know it’s late for you. Thank you for joining the call. But you know what? I’m not going to change the calling time ever. And I’ll still work my daytime and you’ll work your nighttime.

Devendra Malladi:
That’s the lighter version of it. But what I’ve seen work effectively is rather than where the victim hat, folks who feel that you need to get better represented, push for better clarity and policy. And that will allow you to actually, that allyship will allow you to go change the perspective with which people are looking at you. And a quick example, we have a technical track where you become a distinguished engineer from joining in engineering, and you only do that when you stay in the company for a while. And we realized that our Japanese, Korean and Chinese colleagues had fantastic dossiers, when you look at the work that they’ve done.

Devendra Malladi:
But when they came to the meetings and the interview stage, they were really not able to express themselves. Maybe they were not showing up the way most of the folks at the headquarters show up, that was the gap. When this got highlighted we actually pushed for more diversity and actually changing the language in which we have these conversations, even though the boards were English speaking privately, and that allowed us to make a change. So, you can take this drive policy changes and I’m a huge, huge fan of making sure GIBO goes away.

Elisa van Dam:
GIBO, I love that. Remind me, because I’ve already lost the language GIBO is-

Devendra Malladi:
Great intentions, bad outcomes.

Elisa van Dam:
Great intentions, bad outcomes. Yes. I’m going to start using that. We have a really interesting question that’s come through, which is how does an ally balance being proactive and finding opportunities to be an ally versus providing unwanted or unneeded help. And I’m wondering how you all are thinking about that. What advice do you have?

Amri B. Johnson:
Can you repeat that one more time?

Elisa van Dam:
Yes. How do you think about being proactive is an ally, finding opportunities to be an ally, but being careful that you’re not providing unwanted or unneeded, I’m going to call it help. But action that doesn’t feel like help maybe. Well, I’m going to give my perspective… Go ahead, Amri.

Amri B. Johnson:
No, I was going to defer to Michelle.

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
I actually was going to say you simply ask. I think a lot of times we tend to put a lot of structure around the simplest things. And I think when you create an environment of trust and safety, it gives others permission to simply ask and you start off by saying, I may not be asking this the right way. It may be unwanted help at this time. So, my timing could be off, but here is my intent. And my ask is simply how do I do this in a way that is supportive of you?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
I think it honestly is as simple as that. And you give the person on the other side, the permission to say, thank you. I appreciate your offer. The time is not now for me, but I’d love to keep the door open and please note down the future I would love us to have the conversation. I think we need to stop being so uptight. And I know I may be over simplifying this which I tend to do often. Simply ask, ask and the person really will let you know, thank you. Not now. Thank you, I really appreciate this. I really need your support at this time. And here’s how I need it. I think it’s as simple as just inviting someone into a safe space to ask. But, Amri I’d love to get your take as well.

Amri B. Johnson:
No, Michelle, I really like that answer, because I was actually about to say the same thing. Just ask people. But what I would add to it is the art and the mindfulness to ask in and of itself is creating the groundwork for equity to be a part of who you are as an organization, because a lot of inequity happens because people don’t feel like there are folks there that will support them when the situation arises, and they need that support. A lot of mechanisms for when people feel dehumanized, when people feel like they don’t belong, when people feel like they’ve been discriminated against. Whatever it might be. Those channels are really, they feel a little bit stuffed and a little bit like a setup. Like if I go there, I’m going to be losing for perpetuity in my career.

Amri B. Johnson:
So, if you have folks that you can go to when you’re trying to get to something, or you’re trying to get to the next level and you need a little boost and you might need some coaching or somebody that can help remove a barrier or address an inequity. That in and of itself, just asking plants the seed for that to be in the organizational mind, because that person will also say, so and so said that if we needed anything and they’ll throw the we in there, even though it might have been to an individual that they were willing to step up and engage and willing to be influenced so that they could be helpful to an individual or to a particular group. So, asking is straight up and it also plants seeds for way in the future, whether the person accepts it or not.

Elisa van Dam:
I think it actually feels somebody… Go ahead, Michelle.

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
I was just going to add, Deve you said something earlier. And I wrote it down and I actually truly believe in this. You said being comfortable with yourself is the beginning of allyship. And I think when you are comfortable with who you are, you invite others to be comfortable with you, which is why, when people often ask me about is there ever a time where you felt like you don’t belong? I really had to think long and hard about that because there is never a time. Because I find that I am so comfortable with who I am. I set the stage to invite others into a space that is safe and that it’s comfortable, and it creates an opportunity to start a dialogue that could take us just about anywhere. So, I did just want to emphasize Deve, when you mentioned just being comfortable with yourself is also important as well.

Elisa van Dam:
Yeah. I love that. And I think that the idea of opening conversations with people by saying, how’s the culture working for you? What are you seeing? How are things going for you within the organization can then lead to the conversation around how can I support you? How can I make some change that you would find beneficial and useful? How can I act as an ally for you? And I love Michelle, the point that the person can say, I’m good for now, thanks. Or not right now, or maybe talk to somebody else. And that both of those things are okay. Am I ready for allyship at this moment? Maybe, maybe not.

Elisa van Dam:
As we’re starting to get towards the top of the hour, I want us to be moving into action. But first I want to talk a little bit about psychological safety. Because we’ve been talking around it and Michelle, you got us started by saying the idea of if I’m comfortable with who I am, based on what Deve said, of course, then that helps other people to feel like they can bring themselves to the table as well. But what other thoughts or advice you have for people on creating that sense of psychological safety so people can feel free to speak their minds and say things that might be uncomfortable or controversial?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
Sure. So, I think when you’re comfortable with yourself, you disarm the fears of others. And so you bring to the conversation or bring in the room what others are thinking. And so you give people permission to ask those questions and go to those places that they typically would pull back from, or be fearful because they’re not sure if it’s a safe space. And so I typically go there, I invite others in, and it’s about building stakeholder engagement. It’s about building relationships. And that doesn’t happen one time in the conference room, it happens over time. Trust and safety has to be built repeatedly. So, it’s not just one act, but it’s a continuum and a sum of activities that build trust and respect in a safe space.

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
And I think it’s important that organizations understand that although last year, many organizations jumped out there with lofty goals. You hit the button a year later. Many companies still have those goals. Many of them have not been attained. They’re not achievable. And I think it’s a time where you have to put your money where your mouth is. And employees, customers, and competitors are really paying attention to how credible are your goals, and some of these lofty expectations that you’ve put out there. They’re measuring, they’re watching and they’re paying attention. And so I think it becomes a larger conversation around companies have to put their money where their mouth is. This is a pivotal time in our country. This is a great opportunity for us to move the dialogue forward. And I often say, if not now in this moment, then I’m not sure when.

Elisa van Dam:
So, I love that setup for our next conversation where we’re going to be talking about making change. And I couldn’t agree with you more. I want us to take a moment now though, to get really specific and really actionable. So, I’m going to ask each of you to share one thing that you would suggest that people could consider doing over the next, I’m going to say 10 days to take action as an ally, or to create more of a sense of belonging for those around them and for themselves. And while our panelists are sharing those ideas, I would love folks who are participating in the call to go ahead and put in the chat, something that you would like to do in the next 10 days as well. So, we’ve got your input and maybe a little bit of accountability from having written down a goal. So, I’m going to start with Deve. What’s one suggestion you have for our audience?

Devendra Malladi:
Absolutely. I want to just give one message out as an ally for pride in an exec sponsor. I’d like to say Monday was National Coming Out Day, but there is no one specific day that one needed to pick to come out. And if you can, and please do, talk to somebody who is different than yourself, ask them how they’re doing, how they’re experiencing both work and life. Listen to learn, and then follow that up with how can I help you? And I can assure you it’ll enrich you, it’ll enrich them. And you’ll be amazed with how much more your perspective has improved and how much of an impact you will have. 63%, if I remember the statistic right, of LGBTQ folks who come into the workforce from college, go back into the closet, because of lack of this in the workplace. So, please take the opportunity, take this excuse to have a proximity conversation, because proximity will give you curiosity and then you’ll be driven to help them.

Elisa van Dam:
Wow, that’s quite a statistic and a great idea. Thank you so much, Deve. Amri, what and advice or suggestions do you have for our audience on something they can do?

Amri B. Johnson:
Oh, this is actually a hard question, Elisa, because there’s so many things that one could do. I think the one thing that I would suggest is for our work and my model that I’ve used in my career is as a leader or a contributor at whatever level are my decisions, actions, and ways of being, helping the people that I am connected to and working with thrive. And asking yourself that constantly. And so does this help people thrive when I make this decision, when I maybe forget to share a certain information with somebody, when I invite somebody or don’t invite somebody to a meeting, when I invite some people to a meeting too much as they have actually shared with us around that data? Is this helping this person, this individual, this team, this organization thrive? And if not, what do I need to do differently? And so that’s the one thing that I think we can carry and kind of reflect on regularly when we’re making decisions about how who and when of all the folks that we engage with on a day to day basis.

Elisa van Dam:
Absolutely. That’s a great lens to apply in decision making. And as you’re thinking about opportunities going forward. All right. Michelle, what is your suggested action folks could take?

Michelle Taylor-Jones:
I think just very simply, if you see something, say something. And be a part of the change that you want to see. Stop sitting on the sidelines, jump in and help make change. We need everyone onboard this journey to really turn this world into a place where we want to live, our children want to live. So, be the change that you want to see.

Elisa van Dam:
I love that. I can’t think of a better way to wrap up. So, I want to thank our panelists so much. Your wisdom and your experience and your willingness to share just truly is wonderful and so much appreciated. Thank you for being here. Thank you to all of the folks who have joined us for this call and folks who are watching the replay as well. We would love your input. So, please, when you see that evaluation survey come around, just it’s three questions. Let us know your thoughts. And I really look forward to seeing many of you at our next session, which will be in November where we’re going to move from allyship to making change. And how do we change the systems so that we have a more level playing field and everyone can participate. So, with that, I’ve you two minutes to transition to whatever’s next in your day. Thank you again so much and we’ll talk to you soon.