October 10, 2023 • 41 mins
On this episode of Communicate Like You Give A Damn, Kim Clark leads an engaging conversation with award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, author, and diversity, equity, and inclusion expert, Jennifer Brown. From her unique journey of being a former opera singer, to now becoming a trailblazer for DEI, Jennifer Brown gives her insights on how communicators can advise their leaders on leading institutions through change. Not only does she teach us how to lead DEI initiatives in the workplace, but she reminds us how to acknowledge the diversity of opinion. From the peaks and valleys of her experience to understanding the leadership spectrum of allyship, Jennifer reminds us of the power of meeting organizations where they are in order to evoke true change.
About The Guest:
Jennifer Brown (she/her) is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, author, and diversity, equity, and inclusion expert who is deeply passionate about building more inclusive workplaces where all of us can thrive. As the Founder and CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting (JBC), a 20-year-old certified woman- and LGBT-owned firm, Jennifer and her team design and execute inclusion strategies that have been implemented by some of the biggest companies and nonprofits in the world. She is also the bestselling author of four books on inclusive leadership, including her most recent, a second edition of How to Be an Inclusive Leader, which addresses some of the most pressing challenges of our times and how identity, privilege and equity can drive opportunity for all. Her keynoting has taken her from everywhere from Google to IBM to the NASA Space Flight Center to leading business schools around the world, and her podcast, The Will to Change, is in its fifth year, and recognized as one of the top DEI podcasts.
Find Jennifer Here:
About Kim:
Kim Clark (she/her) focuses her work on the communicator and content creator's role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She is the co-author of The Conscious Communicator: The fine art of not saying stupid sh*t, an Amazon #1 bestseller and the leading voice for DEI communications and social justice messaging for brands.
She speaks at conferences, writes custom workshops, writes inclusive communications guides, and consults with companies on all things related to diversity, equity, and inclusion communications. Kim is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a cisgender woman, Native American (Muscogee Nation) and a mom of two kids with disabilities. These marginalized identities and the privileges that come with society seeing her as White motivate her daily for social change.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kim Clark (00:04):
Welcome back, everybody. Oh, this episode Oh,
this episode please. Okay, justpause for a second here, make
sure that you've got some paper,some pens, your iPad, your
laptop, whatever it is in forthose of you who are driving or
jogging right now, you're gonnawant to save this episode and go
back because there's going to benotes that you need to take as a
(00:24):
communicator learning aboutdiversity, equity and inclusion,
what it is what it isn't. It ismy honor to bring Jennifer Brown
in on communicate like you givea damn here in the podcast. I'm
gonna let her introduce herselfand we're just not going to
waste any time, Jennifer, we'rejust gonna go straight in.
Jennifer Brown (00:41):
Okay, straight in. Hi, everybody. I'm Jennifer,
my pronouns are she, her. AndKim. It's such an honor to be
joining you today. And if we arenot communicators, we are
nothing. And I've always beenalways been,
Kim Clark (00:54):
Oh, we're starting off like that I am so happy
about this, say say that, again,for the people in the back.
Unknown (01:01):
If we are not communicators, we are nothing.
Nothing, we will never getanywhere. We will. It's some of
the hardest work to do well, andit requires creativity and
humility and flexibility and allthe things that we can talk
about today. But I mean,honestly, if you said to me,
what is my biggest job? And youmight say it says a dei
(01:25):
professional, but it's really acommunicator, you really is at
the end of the day, God is it.
Kim Clark (01:30):
Okay, I love it. I love it. I love it. You gotta
tell a little bit more aboutyour background as far as like
you know, the books that you'veauthored, the firm that you've
built. And then I want to getinto kind of what the Genesis
was of how you started JenniferBrown consulting.
Unknown (01:45):
Totally. Yeah. So I'll maybe just roll that all in
together. So I'll start I was anopera singer in my 20s. And I
moved to New York to study andunfortunately injured my voice
and had to get a couple ofsurgeries and had to really
leave the field. And I thoughtit was like the end of my life,
you know, when you're young andhas tears in your eyes and think
(02:08):
that's the only way that you canmake a contribution and be heard
back to our point aboutcommunicators? Yeah, I'm sorry,
I was already. Exactly. There'sa theme going? Yes, indeed. But
it wasn't the only way. And whatwas cool is the universe often
redirects us right? If we're notreally using our voice in the
way that we're meant to,literally and figuratively. I
(02:29):
looking back, I think that'swhat happened, I was redirected.
And what I stumbled on was theworld of, you know, it's under
the HR umbrella. But really,it's facilitation and
leadership, and organizationalchange. And I stumbled on that,
because a lot of facilitators,of course, used to be
performers, and still are. Andit is a version of performance.
(02:49):
But it's around a differentobviously a different topic. And
I found it really fascinating tothink about, why do people
change? What is theorganizational structure and
system? How do these companiesget things done? How do people
use their voice in a system tochange that system to influence
that system? And, um, and, youknow, what does it mean to be a
leader, and I just, I justbecame a student of that. And,
(03:13):
and I did little did I know thatI hung my shingle out and 20
years ago, and and the Littledid I know that we would, we
would eventually kind of moveinto this dei field, it was D
and I back then, and scarcelyeven the I was really just, you
know, I'm talking 2025 yearsago, we were really just having
(03:35):
the diversity conversation. AndI moved into that, because I'm a
member of the LGBTQ pluscommunity. And I've been really
active in a lot of advocacywork, but it was pro bono, it
was through my friends whohappened to be the only out
LGBT, there was no q plus, theneither like our language has
(03:55):
changed. But back then we wereyou know, there was there were
really tight circle of us thatwere trying to change companies
for the better. And many of myfriends that that helped do free
panels, and were hosted by thedifferent companies were talking
about domestic partner benefits,and how do we change benefits
and language and the nondiscrimination, policies and
(04:17):
statements of the companies andit was really, really, I really
look back fondly on those days,because I really learned how
important our voices are inchanging these massive
institutions. And how importantshowing up authentically is and
how risky and that is and howmuch courage it takes to really
push your institution,particularly when the
institution is the one that'sgiving you a paycheck every two
(04:39):
weeks. Right. You know, andleveraging though your identity
to better the institution. Andso really, the birth of my
commitment to dei started backthen, and then I realized that
with my background in humancapital and leadership and
elaborate leadershipeffectiveness and team
effectiveness, I could kind ofbring in this Tip, really a very
(05:03):
dedicated di shop. And I startedto build my team with
consultants and began to writebooks about seven years ago. So
I have four books now oninclusive leadership. And I have
a team of people who are amazingwhat they do. And we now come
into companies and deliverstrategy and training and I
keynote and speak a lot. And soI am performing, I like to say I
(05:25):
was meant to use my voice, justnot as a singer. And really, to
use the voice for what hasn'tbeen voiced and who hasn't
haven't had a voice becausethat's something that I really,
I really relate too deeply forall the reasons that I just
described. So it's really veryfulfilling work. It's become
more challenging lately. But Ihave to say, it's been
challenging all along. The onlytime it wasn't even was
(05:50):
challenging and 2020 and 2021,which we can certainly talk
about, just in a very differentway. Yes. It's always been
challenging and, and but verymuch, deeply mission driven for
me and everybody I know thatdoes it.
Kim Clark (06:04):
Yeah, I can think of back when marriage equality was
debated, let's be honest, it wasdebated. And so I wouldn't be as
a gay woman, I would be, youknow, doing the communications
and house at PayPal, forexample, and I would be going to
work and I would have power andprivilege in that situation,
then I would go and do somespeaking and be on a panel
(06:26):
around gay marriage, and thenall of that power and privilege
was gone. Because I was that Iwas the gay person with the
agenda. But it took theheterosexual person to be the
voice in that room and say, No,we're not gonna, we're not,
we're not going to stand forthis, you know, they, they
deserve these basic rights, etc,etc. And which was very
(06:48):
motivational for me, especially,especially before 2020, but
certainly through 2020, in thissense of shifting from ally ship
to advocacy, and I know, youhave kind of a leadership
spectrum that you can speak toand talking about what that ally
ship spectrum looks like, andwhat those steps are, that are
involved. So you have a greatmodel based on that. But that's
(07:10):
when that was the shift for meto actually feel an experience
not having not being paidattention to, you know, not
having that, that power in ourroom to be heard. Now, I was
taught on how to be a woman inthe world, or in the United
States growing up, but alsobeing a gay woman. When my
(07:33):
rights were at stake. You know,it became a real lesson for me
on how much more I have to speakup and use my voice to your
point. So since you've startedyour shop over the last 20
years, you've probably seen somepeaks and valleys, you've
probably seen some waves of yousaid it was DNI and barely
(07:56):
hanging on and I the inclusionin the beginning there. And so
here there's you know,diversity, equity and inclusion,
some people add the A foraccessibility or access, or, you
know, accountability, somepeople use a for that. And then
you add the J in there, and wecan be jet eyes, you know, with
justice. So there's a lot ofacronyms to your point, like
(08:17):
LGBTQ plus, like the acronymcontinues to grow. And friends
who are listening. The reason isbecause it's trying to
demonstrate that heterosexualityis just one of many, many, many
options of gender expression,and sexual orientation. That's
why the acronym keeps growing,because we're trying to
demonstrate, there are so manydifferent ways to show up in the
(08:38):
world.
Unknown (08:40):
Right? It seems so harmless and actually really
good and beneficial. And yet, Ithink we get criticized for
adding complexity. And it'slike, no, it's actually not
complexity, like namingsomething is so important. I
mean, amount, your name is themost precious thing you can hear
as a human, you know, andimagine not having a word for
how you identify. And so whenyou try to explain this to
(09:03):
people, they're like,
where does it end? And it's aslippery slope. And we're
recognizing people too much. Andwe're allowing too much freedom
for expression. And I'm like,are we really having this guy?
Kim Clark (09:14):
Can you hear yourself? Do I need to play this
really? much freedom? Really,really? So tell us about these
peaks and valleys and what haveyou seen and and how would you
describe where we are now andwhere we need to go? Especially
I'm thinking of next year, likewe're recording this in the fall
(09:35):
of 2023. This is a year ahead ofthe presidential election in the
US, for example.
Unknown (09:43):
Yeah, that's the crystal ball question, isn't it?
You know, we have this big thinglooming. Next year and we none
of us knows where it's going andand what it will mean. And
there's a lot of debate aboutwhether, depending on the
outcome, whether or not it willjuice up the To the DEI
conversation again, or whetherit will hurt it or, you know, be
(10:04):
the wind beneath its wings. It'swe're in a bit of the doldrums.
Now. I mean, I would say it'sworse than doldrums. I mean,
we're we have active, activepushback, more, more, more well
funded, more strategic than Ithink we've ever seen. And, and
it's, uh, for every action,there's a reaction, you know,
that's the Newton's law. It isreal. And we know with
(10:28):
hindsight, we should have seenit coming, you know, we should
have expected it's coming.Because we know that that's
that's the way the pendulumswings around. So, but I guess
it has never been so sort ofclearly binary before, because
we've never had an incident like2020, George Floyd, you know,
coming on the heels of thebeginning of the pandemic, and
(10:51):
just the state that we were inthat year, there was an
openness, there was a truthtelling, there was a purging,
there was a sort of explosionof, of these truths. And there
were circumstances that allowthat to happen. And that was so
rare and so special. Sodifficult, so amazing, so
transformative. And yet, we sortof some of us ran really fast
(11:16):
ahead, you know, we thought thisis our moment, you know, we need
to pack everything in, we
need to tell everybodyeverything, we need to tell
everyone that they're, you know,racist, because we grew up in
this is that racist society. Andthere were books and there were
there was so
much, that was good. And I thinkthere was so much truth in what
we talked about. And lookingback as communicators back to
(11:38):
this, did we did we bringeveryone along? Did we kind of
slow down to speed up? Did wemeet people where they're at,
which is one of my most criticaltheories that I operate in,
which is, you know, meetingfolks where they're at and
giving them the pieces toprogress. But, you know,
calibrating with that, becauseif you don't, then you just
(12:02):
overwhelm the system, and youcreate a lot of resistance where
you didn't really need to. But Idon't think there was a
readiness, we all know this, Ithink there was not a readiness
on the part of a lot of peoplefor what 2020 2021 taught us.
There just wasn't a readiness,there wasn't a resilience to it.
There wasn't the ability todigest, like meal after meal
(12:24):
after meal of new information,self reflection, feelings and
emotions around, wow, this rolewas messed up. I didn't know I
haven't been impacted in thisway. What do I do? I mean, the
overwhelm for all of us, youknow, was really intense. So it
was just a very, very uniquetime. February, you know, like I
(12:46):
said, you know, it reallyimportant time, but I think
looking back, all of our theenthusiasm and the progress is
now being challenged. And wecould have foreseen that. And I
don't know what I would dodifferently. But I do think
there's always lessons, there'salways lessons, you know, we
have to be humble, to the factthat we don't have all the
answers about how we createdchange how we facilitated and
(13:08):
shepherded change in that time.And now, this feels really
painful and really difficult tobe in a place of having these
things be challenged in such awell funded and organized way.
And it's really, it's, it's, itfeels harder than it should
feel. And I don't want to behere. And I want to be where we
(13:30):
thought we would be. Perhapssome of us where we thought we
were where we where we expectedourselves to be. And yet, and
yet what it what a reallyimportant lesson for balance and
for meeting folks where they'reat, and having to go back to go
forward and going slow to gofast. And all those things that
I also believe in. So I findmyself having like, you know,
(13:52):
back to basics, conversationswith some folks and but I'm
really grateful actually, thatsome things are being said and
questioned because those thingswere silent before but perhaps
now they're coming out. And, andwe can't deal with anything and
heal anything, explain anything,support anything if we don't
know it exists. And it's notbeing said. So part of this is
(14:13):
really for change makers, thisis a really important moment to
kind of give some things somesome breathing room, and to go
back to go forward. But previousto 2020. There were other kinds
of ebbs and flows right dei hasalways been attached to the
economy, and how companies arefeeling and doing so in my role.
Kim Clark (14:32):
Yeah, that's good. Can you dive a little bit deeper
in there? Because I think peopledon't necessarily connect those
dots.
Unknown (14:38):
Oh, yeah, that's so important to know. It's one on
one at least in my world. Andthe end if you ask anyone and
talent and leadership and HReven, I think the more strategic
work ebbs and flows with howconfident and well funded
companies are feeling, right andhow it to me it's like Maslow's
hierarchy. It's the food,shelter, water, the bottom, and
then it's the selfactualization. as you move up,
(15:00):
and companies go through thatsame, that same process of kind
of toggling between, are we justsort of paying basic attention
to staying alive, or do we feelthat we're staying alive? We've
got excess bandwidth, money, etcto focus on. Okay, now, how do
we do this better for the longterm thinking versus like the
short term firefighting thatyou're doing when you're in
(15:23):
economic duress? So, you know,as the economy goes up and down,
we get more or less funded forthe work because this to me is,
and look, I can argue, you know,you and I would argue this is
food, shelter, water, this isd&i is essential. Yes, I'm just
speaking from their point ofview, that it is not viewed that
(15:44):
way. So we float along, weunfortunately have, you know,
the huge ebbs and flows thatwe've experienced based on that,
and it makes it really hard torun a business in the space
speaking as a business owner,because it's just completely
unpredictable. And you have toyour shop has to be nimble,
flexible, you have to have aflexible workforce of 1090,
(16:06):
nines and employees, and youconstantly have to be like,
making really hard decisions,and you have to be ahead of the
curves. So you need to be ableto look into the future and say,
Well, you know, what changes doI need to make now in order to
ride through the storm that'scoming, and yet, keep the work
alive and keep the communityalive and continue to keep
myself, you know, healthy,because too, it feels really bad
(16:30):
to be sidelined like this, itfeels it is the furthest thing
from validating to feel like youebb and flow with the
vicissitudes of the economy, youknow, because what kind of
messages that said that thiswork isn't always important that
it's only important when I'veextra, you know, to give to it?
No, but so we have to cope withthat, and that doesn't feel
(16:52):
good, doesn't feel good.
Kim Clark (16:54):
No, and to also know that there's a line item within
the legal budget, and for antidiscrimination, for harassment
for all kinds of employeerelations issues, that is
consistently well funded. And,uh, even a percentage of that
going towards the AI, right,would prevent a lot of that end
(17:14):
behavior. Right. You know, soit's like, just working with,
Unknown (17:19):
it's so true, what you say, like, you know, it's, it's
a, it's a small percentage ofthat to ensure that problems
don't happen, but we're just notcompanies are so short term, and
they're thinking and it's almostlike they're based on their
behavior, they would ratherfight fires then address the
upstream, cause, you know, theyrather deal with the symptoms
(17:39):
and the after effects. But bythen the damage is done by then
you've lost the key people bythen you had the reputational
nightmare, you know, and so Iknow, the the, what are the
things that I'm not forgettingthis, there's a phrase about
like, a pound, an ounce ofprevention, and a world of hurt
when you don't make thatinvestment. And you and I know
(18:00):
that but it's a constantstruggle to say, you know, make
this investment in your peopleso that they know, not only the
baseline of what's Okay, andwhat's not okay, but what
inclusive leadership reallylooks like in practice and make
that investment so that, youknow, you don't have the issues
on the back end. But I don'tknow, it feels very cynical the
(18:22):
way that most decisions are madeto kind of cya and check that
box. And we're still in the landof what we call performative
Dei, which is that surface thatsuperficial, that compliance
driven and I feel like we'reback to 2019 1817, a lot of us
are talking about how this feelslike a big rewind. Back to that
(18:44):
kind of thinking. And like, thequestion is being asked now,
like, what was really gainedover the last couple of years
when we find ourselves where weare now. And I that's, that's a
very depressing way to look atit. But it's what it feels like,
and I'm sure it's not true. Weestablished a new water line, a
new watermark, right, a newthreshold in the last couple of
years. And this may just be agiant pendulum swing, but when
(19:07):
it comes back, I, I hope itcomes back further, because we
made all that progress in thoseyears, you know, the last couple
of years ago, but I don't know,it's anyone's guess, and next
year is going to have a lot todo with with what, what that
answer is.
Kim Clark (19:21):
Yeah, absolutely. I feel I agree with everything
that you said. And one of thekey points of of what the summer
of 2020 really reflected it wasbasically a mirror of kind of
the Great White awakening. RightYou know, so there was this, you
know, this is really a call toaction for people who look like
me to, to learn what they havebeen not aware of for a long
(19:48):
time and then turn that intobehavior. But then we just kind
of went home and we left allthat space open. That is now
funded, strategize core neededto fill with rhetoric that is an
accurate that is, you know, copyand paste from playbooks that
has been used over not only justdecades, but centuries and
(20:11):
generations, just copy, paste,copy, paste, copy, paste is the
same thing. It's thedehumanization of language, etc.
But this was a reflection to saythis is going on, who are we in
this? The change has happened?We thought we are farther along.
Wait, we're not as far along?Wait, I'm uncomfortable. I have
(20:32):
an edge. Wait, wait, wait. Andand then it's like, okay, as my
as my mentor says, progress isnot linear. It's a site gets a
spiral. And so yes, we're goingback. But as we turn around that
corner, we want to take more ofus with us. So you're right, I
completely agree with you thatthat all of this that is now
(20:56):
filling that void that we leftas we walked away and went home,
is is filled with what wasalready there. So also to kind
of utilize a quote from mymentor, based on what you just
talked about, whatever needs tobe healed will be revealed. So
(21:17):
that's what's happening. Andand, and it's just a matter of
us taking responsibility thatwe're having each of us are
having a different experience.So to some of us, it's shocking
that other people don't get thepoint of the AI. But there's so
many people who look like me,who genuinely don't understand
(21:40):
the benefits and the value ofthe AI. And how do we make room
for that as part of theconversation? Now let's talk
about who you primarily workwith that demographic that are
in leaders, leadership boards,executives, the C suites, so
you're in there with them, youare teaching them inclusive
(22:00):
leadership, I'm sure you'regetting questions, pushback,
that there is an edge that isidentified, there are so many of
us in corporate communicationswork, and advise and want to
coach and move our leadersforward when we're seeing our
leaders lean back, and kind ofadopt a duck and cover strategy
(22:22):
when it comes to social issuesand dei related topics. So we're
left to our performativecommunication is right. You
know, and and I'm hearing fromregulated industries from Super,
you know, traditionallyconservative industries, from
communicators are like, I know,we have to be doing something
better, we have to get beyondthat, like there's a genuine
(22:43):
desire from communicators. Buthelp us understand the mindset
of these leaders, where they'reat and what have you found? Is
it going to take to help themkind of get out of the duck and
cover strategy, get out of theinertia? And actually lean in
and take up that space? Again?
Unknown (23:04):
Yeah, it's such a good question, Kim. I really like my
work with executive leadershipteams. Just getting in there and
eat remember, first, each personin that team is different. So
that's one the very baseline Iwould give a reminder, of
course, it stands to reason thatI think that we sort of
globalize things, we reallyshouldn't, because actually, our
(23:26):
strategy should differ person toperson. So if you've got a
leadership team of eight people,each one of them is at a
different place, and aboutdifferent things. And so
sometimes you'll see a gendersplit, you will see I often find
myself noticing that the femaleleaders cisgender female leaders
in the room will be furtheralong and sort of aligned
(23:51):
already there. And then thepushback and the questions and
the skepticism may be comingfrom, you know, the cisgender
male leaders because I'm sayingcisgender because honestly,
there's the majority cisgenderpeople and humans in the in that
room, and that will always bethis but it is currently you're
working to change that. But itis. So you know, I often notice
(24:12):
that but not always, not alwaysat all. Not always. And then
you've got the really loudleaders who are the ones that
are throwing up all theobstacles and asking you all
their hard questions. And thenthe really silent ones who maybe
made a mistake recently anddon't want to say anything,
because they're now kind of inthis watchful, fearful sidelines
(24:35):
place. You know, so people'sintent can be and their heart
can be in it, but they'reafraid. They can be actively
resistant, they can becautiously supportive, and then
they can be very overlysupportive. And you've got that
whole plethora in every team.And so anyway, just really
(24:57):
fascinating. And then and thenthere's dynamics. Oh, of
ethnicity. So it's majoritywhite, in most executive
leadership teams in mostcompanies today. Again, this
will change. And we're workinghard to change that. But that is
what we're met with. So there'sa lot like you say, of not
understanding the whiteexperience, not understanding
the privileges that come alongwith walking through this world
(25:20):
in seemingly white identity. AndI say seemingly, because there's
a lot of invisible diversitydimensions in terms of how we
identify. So so there's a lot ofto me and my the work feels in
those rooms, like it's a sort ofmassive challenge of group
management and group dynamics.Number one, sort of noticing
(25:41):
who's being heard who's notbeing heard, who's afraid to
speak up. And sometimes if youhave one or two executives of
color, sometimes they will behanging back. Because they have
said this a million times, andthey haven't been heard. And
sometimes they will continue tosay it and be very bold in the
room. And everything in between,sometimes you'll have an out
executive who's holding back orwho is very verbal and vocal and
(26:04):
proactive. So really noticing tohow people's identities impact
the way they show up in aconversation, and how strong or
not they feel comfortable beingabout their own lived
experience. And it's reallyinteresting to speaking of
communication, I'm in there asan external person. And I
reflect on the role I'm playing,you know, I'm the space holder,
(26:27):
I'm the Container Builder, I'mthe person that's noticing, who
sucks up all the oxygen in theroom? And and I'm also thinking
about seniority is anotherfactor, who's the loudest voice?
And are they the most seniorperson? And are they supportive
or resistant, because sometimes,actually, the CEO is the most
difficult person to manage. In aroom like this. They have the
(26:49):
authority, and if they areskeptical, and questioning, I'm
grateful for that, becauseactually, that person is the
most important person to get onboard like the most. But
sometimes you will spend a lotof time kind of navigating and
managing their questions andtheir pushback. And but you know
that it's important, you dothat, because they've got to get
(27:12):
their questions answered, theyhave to come to a place where
you agree or disagree, they needto come to a place where they
are leading. And this is such animportant point. This is not an
agree or disagree conversation,when you are leading an
institution and you stand up tolead you, you sign up for that
job, your job is actually isirrespective of your personal
(27:33):
beliefs, actually, it is thevalues of the institution. And
hopefully you've done values,alignment and creation, and
everybody's participated inthat. And usually these days,
one of those values isinclusiveness called various
things, but that is, so when yousign up to be a leader, you are
you're charged with leading thisinstitution through change. And
(27:54):
a lot of that change isdemographic change of your
talent of your current andfuture employees of your
marketplace and your buyers andyour customers and your client,
it is all changing. And I cantell you, it is changing a way
from white cisgender maleidentities. So if we can all
agree on that baseline, that'swhere I sort of come back to in
(28:15):
these rooms, to say like, okay,we can in this room, we can have
some conversations about beliefsand etc, you know, but at the
end of the day, you need to makesure that this institution
remains viable, it thrives. Itis thinking ahead into the
future, and it resonates, andyou're able to come up with what
is going to resonate with thatchanging world that you serve.
(28:38):
And the only way you're going tobe able to do that is to not
have a homogeneous group ofpeople at the table, creating
products, innovating customerstrategies, etc. You're going to
miss a lot if you don't have athe diversity of that table be
the inclusion at that table,which means I'm heard, I'm asked
for my perspective, I can weighin on my lived experience, it
(29:02):
will be heard and acted upon,not just heard, right. And so we
need to follow the whole logicthat in that way. So that it
gets out of this, Jennifer, thisis too political. And I'm like
how people identify and theirlived experience is not
political. And it is also notpolitical to to make the create
(29:23):
the logical argument that I justdid, which I think we all agree
on, really, which is is thefurthest thing from politicizing
something, it is really, youknow, to me the SIRT the
survival and the success of aninstitution in a really chaotic,
fast changing unpredictableworld. You have to sort of, you
(29:43):
know, embed these truths thatyou know, not whether you agree
or disagree with them, they justare which is how the world is
changing. So, for communicators,this is what we call the
business case what I justdescribed to you, and returning
to that as a very, it's aprudent practice. Because
business leaders get it. And Ialso think we need to kind of if
(30:05):
they try to take you off andinto a rabbit hole around, you
know, the politics of things, orthere's another rabbit hole, by
the way of, if we give people aninch around identity, they'll
take a mile, kind of like howyou were talking about Kim,
like, where does it end? Andlike, how many how many
incidences are we expected toaddress that are happening in
(30:25):
the external world, like, youknow, they they, in my book,
they picked out this quote, mostrecent example, executive team I
was working with, and there's aLatina identified employee that
came in on a Monday morning andsaid, somebody asked how their
weekend was, and there it wasduring 2020. And there was
(30:46):
marches and so much pain, somuch articulation of, of
suffering, and she had beenactive and all of that over the
weekend, and there had beenviolence and all the things that
were happening. She came in, andshe's like, my weekend was a
racist, hellscape, how wasyours? And these white leaders
kind of picked up on this. Andwe have this whole discussion
(31:07):
about the word hellscape. Andthis whole discussion about
Monday, and like, what, whatpeople are entitled to bring in
to the workplace. And it wasreally so interesting to just
dig into that and say, you know,so what do we expect people to
sort of hide and downplay andstuff into a corner and not talk
(31:29):
about? And how do we how do wewant people to bring their full
selves to work? What does thatmean? Where does the where's the
boundary? If we do one thing forone community, then what do we
do need to do for the othercommunities? And, you know, and
those that's a lot of like, tugof war, and these sessions,
because there's a lot ofdiscussion about it, like, does
it matter? Is it important? Howdo we do it? What do we do it
(31:50):
for? What if we havedisagreement, we have
disagreement around the abortionquestion. I mean, most of my
cut, my clients will say, ourworkforce is split on this
question. So then we say, okay,so how do we enable the
inclusion of that, and to beheard, but then, as a company,
(32:12):
what do you want your decisionto be around benefits? Those two
things can exist together andside by side? And how you
navigate this as you can? It'snot this one, or it's not a
binary? Yes, no, we agree, wedon't we say this, we don't say
whatever. It's a lot ofdifferent things that enable
(32:34):
people to be simultaneouslyheard and acknowledge the
diversity of opinion. And yet atthe same time, it's a choice on
the part of the institution togo a certain way and provide
certain things and to your pointcommunicators need to parse this
and communicate it in a verydelicate way. And I feel for the
(32:56):
communicator community, becausethis is hard to thread this
needle. I mean, that's just oneexample of many, that there, it
feels like you're kind of in abalancing act. And honestly,
Kim, this is the new job of acommunications professional,
you've got to know how to adviseyour leaders on how to hold the
space for all of this. And atthe same time, point your arrow
(33:20):
and your compass towards afuture and maintaining your
commitments to be being anemployer of choice. That is
thinking about and planning forand supporting a rapidly
diversifying workforce andenvironment. So I know I can't
like wrap this up in a nice,neat bow. But if you can ask the
(33:42):
right questions, and you cankind of surface a lot of these
things. And then keep your eyeon the ball about what the
future holds. And I think you'llbe able to help your leaders,
you know, make the rightdecision. And if they want to
sit in the middle of all of thisfine. Middle is okay for some
companies, your company's in themiddle, you know, you're in,
you're figuring it out, you'redoing a little of this and a
(34:02):
little of that, and you're theretrial balloons, and you're kind
of trying to find your voiceand, and you don't want to come
out like gangbusters on, youknow, 10 different issues
tomorrow. And you want to takeyour cue from maybe these
affinity groups that you've justformed, and they're just getting
started. And that is fine. Youneed to meet the organization
where they're at. You don't needand push a little bit. But I
(34:24):
wouldn't say I would never eversay throw your leaders and your
company into the deep end.Without having this sort of
muscle built for the deep end.You don't want to drown in the
deep end, you want the you wantthe skill to tread water there.
And you need to assess where isthe organization, where are my
leaders? What are we ready for?What are what is not going to
(34:46):
cause more resistance, but he'sgoing to enable the majority of
folks to feel heard to be onboard, maybe not agree, but
understand where we're going andunderstand that it's a
leadership imperative. That wasa long answer.
Kim Clark (35:04):
There's so much good stuff in there. Some things that
I want to highlight, you know,the decoupling of the pullet is
politicized. I can't say thatword. zation. Thank you. Thank
you for that. You're on EastCoast time. So you know, more
common office warmer. Yeah. Soyeah, it you know, that
decoupling absolutely has to hasto happen, because there's a
(35:26):
created narrative that actuallydoesn't exist. So my being gay,
or my being a woman, you know,is not, you know, in it has been
my identity has beenpoliticized. But just like being
a man, being white, you know,that that is somehow exempt of
being politicized. So it's justlike this decoupling and being
(35:49):
consistent about it, I think isis really key. And also, I love
all the analogies aroundtreading water. And you know,
you just, it was a nice layup tothe depth model that we talked
about in the book, the consciouscommunicator. excellent book.
Well, thank you for yourtestimonial. And Jennifer, I
really, we're very, verygrateful for your support of the
(36:13):
book, for sure. And in thatframework, it helps answer some
of those questions. You saidearlier, in that response,
leaders need to have theirquestions answered. Now, there's
two parts to it, I'm sure thatyou've run into as well as like,
some leaders will throw outthings, but they don't want to
know the answer. They don't wantto go, you know, it's like, it's
more of just like, you know,saying something to say
(36:34):
something, but they're notactually genuinely interested in
learning. But then there are thepeople who the leaders who do
want, you know, those questions,but they don't know where they
can get those answers from in away that they can receive them,
and know what to do with it,because I want empathy for
leaders, right, you know, theydidn't get to be where they are,
because they're incredible atdi, right. It wasn't part of
(36:57):
their performance, you know, asit climbed the ladder and
promoted, it was like, you know,there was no 360 When they were
a director level saying, How areyou on your di skills? Here,
they are now,
Unknown (37:10):
good at it like yesterday, I mean, yeah, listen,
Kim Clark (37:14):
and yet they have this pressure from the board's
pressure from customers pressurefrom employees, say something,
do something. So the Deaf modelhelps with that middle, like you
were talking about, like, youknow, it gets you into the work
in a meaningful transformable.That's not a word
transformational way. So thatthat was all of your points were
(37:37):
so key. And the other part ofsomething that I want to
highlight what from what youjust said is that communicators
can be those advisors to helpthose leaders get those
questions answered, they couldset things up, they can engage
in conversation themselves, andnot let comments like, we don't
(37:58):
want to do too much too soon. Bea decision. As you know, like,
that's the end of theconversation that needs to be
the beginning of theconversation. So what is too
much? What is too soon? Whatdoes that look like? But the
decoupling? I think that'sreally important for people to
hear and understand. And at thesame time, understand that, you
know, when you were talkingabout the Agree, disagree, it's
(38:22):
like my identity is not anegotiation, you know, that's
not a pawn, right. It's not,that's not negotiable. And what
you know, and on the abortiontopic that you were talking
about earlier, it's, it's thiscrossing of the line that we
need to keep each other incheck. So you can believe one
way. But if I believe anotherway, because I'm having a
(38:43):
different experience than you,you know, and so and then you're
having a different experiencethan me. So where you're coming
from feels very real to you. Andwhere I'm coming from is very
real for me. And then thenegotiation is not on my
identity, but the negotiation ishow do we coexist as colleagues,
to allow ourselves to honor ourexperiences in a way that we can
(39:08):
coexist and thrive together inthe same space? You know, that's
the negotiate, that's what needsto be negotiated that when
that's, that's thecommunication, the good
negotiation is not yourexperience trying to legislate
my experience and my decisionmaking, you know, and vice
versa. So it's a very richconversation. Point to it
(39:32):
language leads to behavior.That's why you know, I've so
much money on the communicatorsand really leading this work.
Okay, friends, we're actuallygoing to pause the conversation
right here. I know it is sogood. And it was really building
up momentum. You probably hateme right now. But the
conversation when we recordedwas so good. We just kept going
(39:53):
and going. So we're going tosplit it the sake of your time
and protecting your time. We'regoing to split This conversation
into two different episodes sokeep a lookout and find the
other half and the other part ofthis conversation with this
guest I know you're gonna loveit
Welcome back, everybody. Oh, this episode Oh,
this episode please. Okay, justpause for a second here, make
sure that you've got some paper,some pens, your iPad, your
laptop, whatever it is in forthose of you who are driving or
jogging right now, you're gonnawant to save this episode and go
back because there's going to benotes that you need to take as a
(00:24):
communicator learning aboutdiversity, equity and inclusion,
what it is what it isn't. It ismy honor to bring Jennifer Brown
in on communicate like you givea damn here in the podcast. I'm
gonna let her introduce herselfand we're just not going to
waste any time, Jennifer, we'rejust gonna go straight in.
Jennifer Brown (00:41):
Okay, straight in. Hi, everybody. I'm Jennifer,
my pronouns are she, her. AndKim. It's such an honor to be
joining you today. And if we arenot communicators, we are
nothing. And I've always beenalways been,
Kim Clark (00:54):
Oh, we're starting off like that I am so happy
about this, say say that, again,for the people in the back.
Unknown (01:01):
If we are not communicators, we are nothing.
Nothing, we will never getanywhere. We will. It's some of
the hardest work to do well, andit requires creativity and
humility and flexibility and allthe things that we can talk
about today. But I mean,honestly, if you said to me,
what is my biggest job? And youmight say it says a dei
(01:25):
professional, but it's really acommunicator, you really is at
the end of the day, God is it.
Kim Clark (01:30):
Okay, I love it. I love it. I love it. You gotta
tell a little bit more aboutyour background as far as like
you know, the books that you'veauthored, the firm that you've
built. And then I want to getinto kind of what the Genesis
was of how you started JenniferBrown consulting.
Unknown (01:45):
Totally. Yeah. So I'll maybe just roll that all in
together. So I'll start I was anopera singer in my 20s. And I
moved to New York to study andunfortunately injured my voice
and had to get a couple ofsurgeries and had to really
leave the field. And I thoughtit was like the end of my life,
you know, when you're young andhas tears in your eyes and think
(02:08):
that's the only way that you canmake a contribution and be heard
back to our point aboutcommunicators? Yeah, I'm sorry,
I was already. Exactly. There'sa theme going? Yes, indeed. But
it wasn't the only way. And whatwas cool is the universe often
redirects us right? If we're notreally using our voice in the
way that we're meant to,literally and figuratively. I
(02:29):
looking back, I think that'swhat happened, I was redirected.
And what I stumbled on was theworld of, you know, it's under
the HR umbrella. But really,it's facilitation and
leadership, and organizationalchange. And I stumbled on that,
because a lot of facilitators,of course, used to be
performers, and still are. Andit is a version of performance.
(02:49):
But it's around a differentobviously a different topic. And
I found it really fascinating tothink about, why do people
change? What is theorganizational structure and
system? How do these companiesget things done? How do people
use their voice in a system tochange that system to influence
that system? And, um, and, youknow, what does it mean to be a
leader, and I just, I justbecame a student of that. And,
(03:13):
and I did little did I know thatI hung my shingle out and 20
years ago, and and the Littledid I know that we would, we
would eventually kind of moveinto this dei field, it was D
and I back then, and scarcelyeven the I was really just, you
know, I'm talking 2025 yearsago, we were really just having
(03:35):
the diversity conversation. AndI moved into that, because I'm a
member of the LGBTQ pluscommunity. And I've been really
active in a lot of advocacywork, but it was pro bono, it
was through my friends whohappened to be the only out
LGBT, there was no q plus, theneither like our language has
(03:55):
changed. But back then we wereyou know, there was there were
really tight circle of us thatwere trying to change companies
for the better. And many of myfriends that that helped do free
panels, and were hosted by thedifferent companies were talking
about domestic partner benefits,and how do we change benefits
and language and the nondiscrimination, policies and
(04:17):
statements of the companies andit was really, really, I really
look back fondly on those days,because I really learned how
important our voices are inchanging these massive
institutions. And how importantshowing up authentically is and
how risky and that is and howmuch courage it takes to really
push your institution,particularly when the
institution is the one that'sgiving you a paycheck every two
(04:39):
weeks. Right. You know, andleveraging though your identity
to better the institution. Andso really, the birth of my
commitment to dei started backthen, and then I realized that
with my background in humancapital and leadership and
elaborate leadershipeffectiveness and team
effectiveness, I could kind ofbring in this Tip, really a very
(05:03):
dedicated di shop. And I startedto build my team with
consultants and began to writebooks about seven years ago. So
I have four books now oninclusive leadership. And I have
a team of people who are amazingwhat they do. And we now come
into companies and deliverstrategy and training and I
keynote and speak a lot. And soI am performing, I like to say I
(05:25):
was meant to use my voice, justnot as a singer. And really, to
use the voice for what hasn'tbeen voiced and who hasn't
haven't had a voice becausethat's something that I really,
I really relate too deeply forall the reasons that I just
described. So it's really veryfulfilling work. It's become
more challenging lately. But Ihave to say, it's been
challenging all along. The onlytime it wasn't even was
(05:50):
challenging and 2020 and 2021,which we can certainly talk
about, just in a very differentway. Yes. It's always been
challenging and, and but verymuch, deeply mission driven for
me and everybody I know thatdoes it.
Kim Clark (06:04):
Yeah, I can think of back when marriage equality was
debated, let's be honest, it wasdebated. And so I wouldn't be as
a gay woman, I would be, youknow, doing the communications
and house at PayPal, forexample, and I would be going to
work and I would have power andprivilege in that situation,
then I would go and do somespeaking and be on a panel
(06:26):
around gay marriage, and thenall of that power and privilege
was gone. Because I was that Iwas the gay person with the
agenda. But it took theheterosexual person to be the
voice in that room and say, No,we're not gonna, we're not,
we're not going to stand forthis, you know, they, they
deserve these basic rights, etc,etc. And which was very
(06:48):
motivational for me, especially,especially before 2020, but
certainly through 2020, in thissense of shifting from ally ship
to advocacy, and I know, youhave kind of a leadership
spectrum that you can speak toand talking about what that ally
ship spectrum looks like, andwhat those steps are, that are
involved. So you have a greatmodel based on that. But that's
(07:10):
when that was the shift for meto actually feel an experience
not having not being paidattention to, you know, not
having that, that power in ourroom to be heard. Now, I was
taught on how to be a woman inthe world, or in the United
States growing up, but alsobeing a gay woman. When my
(07:33):
rights were at stake. You know,it became a real lesson for me
on how much more I have to speakup and use my voice to your
point. So since you've startedyour shop over the last 20
years, you've probably seen somepeaks and valleys, you've
probably seen some waves of yousaid it was DNI and barely
(07:56):
hanging on and I the inclusionin the beginning there. And so
here there's you know,diversity, equity and inclusion,
some people add the A foraccessibility or access, or, you
know, accountability, somepeople use a for that. And then
you add the J in there, and wecan be jet eyes, you know, with
justice. So there's a lot ofacronyms to your point, like
(08:17):
LGBTQ plus, like the acronymcontinues to grow. And friends
who are listening. The reason isbecause it's trying to
demonstrate that heterosexualityis just one of many, many, many
options of gender expression,and sexual orientation. That's
why the acronym keeps growing,because we're trying to
demonstrate, there are so manydifferent ways to show up in the
(08:38):
world.
Unknown (08:40):
Right? It seems so harmless and actually really
good and beneficial. And yet, Ithink we get criticized for
adding complexity. And it'slike, no, it's actually not
complexity, like namingsomething is so important. I
mean, amount, your name is themost precious thing you can hear
as a human, you know, andimagine not having a word for
how you identify. And so whenyou try to explain this to
(09:03):
people, they're like,
where does it end? And it's aslippery slope. And we're
recognizing people too much. Andwe're allowing too much freedom
for expression. And I'm like,are we really having this guy?
Kim Clark (09:14):
Can you hear yourself? Do I need to play this
really? much freedom? Really,really? So tell us about these
peaks and valleys and what haveyou seen and and how would you
describe where we are now andwhere we need to go? Especially
I'm thinking of next year, likewe're recording this in the fall
(09:35):
of 2023. This is a year ahead ofthe presidential election in the
US, for example.
Unknown (09:43):
Yeah, that's the crystal ball question, isn't it?
You know, we have this big thinglooming. Next year and we none
of us knows where it's going andand what it will mean. And
there's a lot of debate aboutwhether, depending on the
outcome, whether or not it willjuice up the To the DEI
conversation again, or whetherit will hurt it or, you know, be
(10:04):
the wind beneath its wings. It'swe're in a bit of the doldrums.
Now. I mean, I would say it'sworse than doldrums. I mean,
we're we have active, activepushback, more, more, more well
funded, more strategic than Ithink we've ever seen. And, and
it's, uh, for every action,there's a reaction, you know,
that's the Newton's law. It isreal. And we know with
(10:28):
hindsight, we should have seenit coming, you know, we should
have expected it's coming.Because we know that that's
that's the way the pendulumswings around. So, but I guess
it has never been so sort ofclearly binary before, because
we've never had an incident like2020, George Floyd, you know,
coming on the heels of thebeginning of the pandemic, and
(10:51):
just the state that we were inthat year, there was an
openness, there was a truthtelling, there was a purging,
there was a sort of explosionof, of these truths. And there
were circumstances that allowthat to happen. And that was so
rare and so special. Sodifficult, so amazing, so
transformative. And yet, we sortof some of us ran really fast
(11:16):
ahead, you know, we thought thisis our moment, you know, we need
to pack everything in, we
need to tell everybodyeverything, we need to tell
everyone that they're, you know,racist, because we grew up in
this is that racist society. Andthere were books and there were
there was so
much, that was good. And I thinkthere was so much truth in what
we talked about. And lookingback as communicators back to
(11:38):
this, did we did we bringeveryone along? Did we kind of
slow down to speed up? Did wemeet people where they're at,
which is one of my most criticaltheories that I operate in,
which is, you know, meetingfolks where they're at and
giving them the pieces toprogress. But, you know,
calibrating with that, becauseif you don't, then you just
(12:02):
overwhelm the system, and youcreate a lot of resistance where
you didn't really need to. But Idon't think there was a
readiness, we all know this, Ithink there was not a readiness
on the part of a lot of peoplefor what 2020 2021 taught us.
There just wasn't a readiness,there wasn't a resilience to it.
There wasn't the ability todigest, like meal after meal
(12:24):
after meal of new information,self reflection, feelings and
emotions around, wow, this rolewas messed up. I didn't know I
haven't been impacted in thisway. What do I do? I mean, the
overwhelm for all of us, youknow, was really intense. So it
was just a very, very uniquetime. February, you know, like I
(12:46):
said, you know, it reallyimportant time, but I think
looking back, all of our theenthusiasm and the progress is
now being challenged. And wecould have foreseen that. And I
don't know what I would dodifferently. But I do think
there's always lessons, there'salways lessons, you know, we
have to be humble, to the factthat we don't have all the
answers about how we createdchange how we facilitated and
(13:08):
shepherded change in that time.And now, this feels really
painful and really difficult tobe in a place of having these
things be challenged in such awell funded and organized way.
And it's really, it's, it's, itfeels harder than it should
feel. And I don't want to behere. And I want to be where we
(13:30):
thought we would be. Perhapssome of us where we thought we
were where we where we expectedourselves to be. And yet, and
yet what it what a reallyimportant lesson for balance and
for meeting folks where they'reat, and having to go back to go
forward and going slow to gofast. And all those things that
I also believe in. So I findmyself having like, you know,
(13:52):
back to basics, conversationswith some folks and but I'm
really grateful actually, thatsome things are being said and
questioned because those thingswere silent before but perhaps
now they're coming out. And, andwe can't deal with anything and
heal anything, explain anything,support anything if we don't
know it exists. And it's notbeing said. So part of this is
(14:13):
really for change makers, thisis a really important moment to
kind of give some things somesome breathing room, and to go
back to go forward. But previousto 2020. There were other kinds
of ebbs and flows right dei hasalways been attached to the
economy, and how companies arefeeling and doing so in my role.
Kim Clark (14:32):
Yeah, that's good. Can you dive a little bit deeper
in there? Because I think peopledon't necessarily connect those
dots.
Unknown (14:38):
Oh, yeah, that's so important to know. It's one on
one at least in my world. Andthe end if you ask anyone and
talent and leadership and HReven, I think the more strategic
work ebbs and flows with howconfident and well funded
companies are feeling, right andhow it to me it's like Maslow's
hierarchy. It's the food,shelter, water, the bottom, and
then it's the selfactualization. as you move up,
(15:00):
and companies go through thatsame, that same process of kind
of toggling between, are we justsort of paying basic attention
to staying alive, or do we feelthat we're staying alive? We've
got excess bandwidth, money, etcto focus on. Okay, now, how do
we do this better for the longterm thinking versus like the
short term firefighting thatyou're doing when you're in
(15:23):
economic duress? So, you know,as the economy goes up and down,
we get more or less funded forthe work because this to me is,
and look, I can argue, you know,you and I would argue this is
food, shelter, water, this isd&i is essential. Yes, I'm just
speaking from their point ofview, that it is not viewed that
(15:44):
way. So we float along, weunfortunately have, you know,
the huge ebbs and flows thatwe've experienced based on that,
and it makes it really hard torun a business in the space
speaking as a business owner,because it's just completely
unpredictable. And you have toyour shop has to be nimble,
flexible, you have to have aflexible workforce of 1090,
(16:06):
nines and employees, and youconstantly have to be like,
making really hard decisions,and you have to be ahead of the
curves. So you need to be ableto look into the future and say,
Well, you know, what changes doI need to make now in order to
ride through the storm that'scoming, and yet, keep the work
alive and keep the communityalive and continue to keep
myself, you know, healthy,because too, it feels really bad
(16:30):
to be sidelined like this, itfeels it is the furthest thing
from validating to feel like youebb and flow with the
vicissitudes of the economy, youknow, because what kind of
messages that said that thiswork isn't always important that
it's only important when I'veextra, you know, to give to it?
No, but so we have to cope withthat, and that doesn't feel
(16:52):
good, doesn't feel good.
Kim Clark (16:54):
No, and to also know that there's a line item within
the legal budget, and for antidiscrimination, for harassment
for all kinds of employeerelations issues, that is
consistently well funded. And,uh, even a percentage of that
going towards the AI, right,would prevent a lot of that end
(17:14):
behavior. Right. You know, soit's like, just working with,
Unknown (17:19):
it's so true, what you say, like, you know, it's, it's
a, it's a small percentage ofthat to ensure that problems
don't happen, but we're just notcompanies are so short term, and
they're thinking and it's almostlike they're based on their
behavior, they would ratherfight fires then address the
upstream, cause, you know, theyrather deal with the symptoms
(17:39):
and the after effects. But bythen the damage is done by then
you've lost the key people bythen you had the reputational
nightmare, you know, and so Iknow, the the, what are the
things that I'm not forgettingthis, there's a phrase about
like, a pound, an ounce ofprevention, and a world of hurt
when you don't make thatinvestment. And you and I know
(18:00):
that but it's a constantstruggle to say, you know, make
this investment in your peopleso that they know, not only the
baseline of what's Okay, andwhat's not okay, but what
inclusive leadership reallylooks like in practice and make
that investment so that, youknow, you don't have the issues
on the back end. But I don'tknow, it feels very cynical the
(18:22):
way that most decisions are madeto kind of cya and check that
box. And we're still in the landof what we call performative
Dei, which is that surface thatsuperficial, that compliance
driven and I feel like we'reback to 2019 1817, a lot of us
are talking about how this feelslike a big rewind. Back to that
(18:44):
kind of thinking. And like, thequestion is being asked now,
like, what was really gainedover the last couple of years
when we find ourselves where weare now. And I that's, that's a
very depressing way to look atit. But it's what it feels like,
and I'm sure it's not true. Weestablished a new water line, a
new watermark, right, a newthreshold in the last couple of
years. And this may just be agiant pendulum swing, but when
(19:07):
it comes back, I, I hope itcomes back further, because we
made all that progress in thoseyears, you know, the last couple
of years ago, but I don't know,it's anyone's guess, and next
year is going to have a lot todo with with what, what that
answer is.
Kim Clark (19:21):
Yeah, absolutely. I feel I agree with everything
that you said. And one of thekey points of of what the summer
of 2020 really reflected it wasbasically a mirror of kind of
the Great White awakening. RightYou know, so there was this, you
know, this is really a call toaction for people who look like
me to, to learn what they havebeen not aware of for a long
(19:48):
time and then turn that intobehavior. But then we just kind
of went home and we left allthat space open. That is now
funded, strategize core neededto fill with rhetoric that is an
accurate that is, you know, copyand paste from playbooks that
has been used over not only justdecades, but centuries and
(20:11):
generations, just copy, paste,copy, paste, copy, paste is the
same thing. It's thedehumanization of language, etc.
But this was a reflection to saythis is going on, who are we in
this? The change has happened?We thought we are farther along.
Wait, we're not as far along?Wait, I'm uncomfortable. I have
(20:32):
an edge. Wait, wait, wait. Andand then it's like, okay, as my
as my mentor says, progress isnot linear. It's a site gets a
spiral. And so yes, we're goingback. But as we turn around that
corner, we want to take more ofus with us. So you're right, I
completely agree with you thatthat all of this that is now
(20:56):
filling that void that we leftas we walked away and went home,
is is filled with what wasalready there. So also to kind
of utilize a quote from mymentor, based on what you just
talked about, whatever needs tobe healed will be revealed. So
(21:17):
that's what's happening. Andand, and it's just a matter of
us taking responsibility thatwe're having each of us are
having a different experience.So to some of us, it's shocking
that other people don't get thepoint of the AI. But there's so
many people who look like me,who genuinely don't understand
(21:40):
the benefits and the value ofthe AI. And how do we make room
for that as part of theconversation? Now let's talk
about who you primarily workwith that demographic that are
in leaders, leadership boards,executives, the C suites, so
you're in there with them, youare teaching them inclusive
(22:00):
leadership, I'm sure you'regetting questions, pushback,
that there is an edge that isidentified, there are so many of
us in corporate communicationswork, and advise and want to
coach and move our leadersforward when we're seeing our
leaders lean back, and kind ofadopt a duck and cover strategy
(22:22):
when it comes to social issuesand dei related topics. So we're
left to our performativecommunication is right. You
know, and and I'm hearing fromregulated industries from Super,
you know, traditionallyconservative industries, from
communicators are like, I know,we have to be doing something
better, we have to get beyondthat, like there's a genuine
(22:43):
desire from communicators. Buthelp us understand the mindset
of these leaders, where they'reat and what have you found? Is
it going to take to help themkind of get out of the duck and
cover strategy, get out of theinertia? And actually lean in
and take up that space? Again?
Unknown (23:04):
Yeah, it's such a good question, Kim. I really like my
work with executive leadershipteams. Just getting in there and
eat remember, first, each personin that team is different. So
that's one the very baseline Iwould give a reminder, of
course, it stands to reason thatI think that we sort of
globalize things, we reallyshouldn't, because actually, our
(23:26):
strategy should differ person toperson. So if you've got a
leadership team of eight people,each one of them is at a
different place, and aboutdifferent things. And so
sometimes you'll see a gendersplit, you will see I often find
myself noticing that the femaleleaders cisgender female leaders
in the room will be furtheralong and sort of aligned
(23:51):
already there. And then thepushback and the questions and
the skepticism may be comingfrom, you know, the cisgender
male leaders because I'm sayingcisgender because honestly,
there's the majority cisgenderpeople and humans in the in that
room, and that will always bethis but it is currently you're
working to change that. But itis. So you know, I often notice
(24:12):
that but not always, not alwaysat all. Not always. And then
you've got the really loudleaders who are the ones that
are throwing up all theobstacles and asking you all
their hard questions. And thenthe really silent ones who maybe
made a mistake recently anddon't want to say anything,
because they're now kind of inthis watchful, fearful sidelines
(24:35):
place. You know, so people'sintent can be and their heart
can be in it, but they'reafraid. They can be actively
resistant, they can becautiously supportive, and then
they can be very overlysupportive. And you've got that
whole plethora in every team.And so anyway, just really
(24:57):
fascinating. And then and thenthere's dynamics. Oh, of
ethnicity. So it's majoritywhite, in most executive
leadership teams in mostcompanies today. Again, this
will change. And we're workinghard to change that. But that is
what we're met with. So there'sa lot like you say, of not
understanding the whiteexperience, not understanding
the privileges that come alongwith walking through this world
(25:20):
in seemingly white identity. AndI say seemingly, because there's
a lot of invisible diversitydimensions in terms of how we
identify. So so there's a lot ofto me and my the work feels in
those rooms, like it's a sort ofmassive challenge of group
management and group dynamics.Number one, sort of noticing
(25:41):
who's being heard who's notbeing heard, who's afraid to
speak up. And sometimes if youhave one or two executives of
color, sometimes they will behanging back. Because they have
said this a million times, andthey haven't been heard. And
sometimes they will continue tosay it and be very bold in the
room. And everything in between,sometimes you'll have an out
executive who's holding back orwho is very verbal and vocal and
(26:04):
proactive. So really noticing tohow people's identities impact
the way they show up in aconversation, and how strong or
not they feel comfortable beingabout their own lived
experience. And it's reallyinteresting to speaking of
communication, I'm in there asan external person. And I
reflect on the role I'm playing,you know, I'm the space holder,
(26:27):
I'm the Container Builder, I'mthe person that's noticing, who
sucks up all the oxygen in theroom? And and I'm also thinking
about seniority is anotherfactor, who's the loudest voice?
And are they the most seniorperson? And are they supportive
or resistant, because sometimes,actually, the CEO is the most
difficult person to manage. In aroom like this. They have the
(26:49):
authority, and if they areskeptical, and questioning, I'm
grateful for that, becauseactually, that person is the
most important person to get onboard like the most. But
sometimes you will spend a lotof time kind of navigating and
managing their questions andtheir pushback. And but you know
that it's important, you dothat, because they've got to get
(27:12):
their questions answered, theyhave to come to a place where
you agree or disagree, they needto come to a place where they
are leading. And this is such animportant point. This is not an
agree or disagree conversation,when you are leading an
institution and you stand up tolead you, you sign up for that
job, your job is actually isirrespective of your personal
(27:33):
beliefs, actually, it is thevalues of the institution. And
hopefully you've done values,alignment and creation, and
everybody's participated inthat. And usually these days,
one of those values isinclusiveness called various
things, but that is, so when yousign up to be a leader, you are
you're charged with leading thisinstitution through change. And
(27:54):
a lot of that change isdemographic change of your
talent of your current andfuture employees of your
marketplace and your buyers andyour customers and your client,
it is all changing. And I cantell you, it is changing a way
from white cisgender maleidentities. So if we can all
agree on that baseline, that'swhere I sort of come back to in
(28:15):
these rooms, to say like, okay,we can in this room, we can have
some conversations about beliefsand etc, you know, but at the
end of the day, you need to makesure that this institution
remains viable, it thrives. Itis thinking ahead into the
future, and it resonates, andyou're able to come up with what
is going to resonate with thatchanging world that you serve.
(28:38):
And the only way you're going tobe able to do that is to not
have a homogeneous group ofpeople at the table, creating
products, innovating customerstrategies, etc. You're going to
miss a lot if you don't have athe diversity of that table be
the inclusion at that table,which means I'm heard, I'm asked
for my perspective, I can weighin on my lived experience, it
(29:02):
will be heard and acted upon,not just heard, right. And so we
need to follow the whole logicthat in that way. So that it
gets out of this, Jennifer, thisis too political. And I'm like
how people identify and theirlived experience is not
political. And it is also notpolitical to to make the create
(29:23):
the logical argument that I justdid, which I think we all agree
on, really, which is is thefurthest thing from politicizing
something, it is really, youknow, to me the SIRT the
survival and the success of aninstitution in a really chaotic,
fast changing unpredictableworld. You have to sort of, you
(29:43):
know, embed these truths thatyou know, not whether you agree
or disagree with them, they justare which is how the world is
changing. So, for communicators,this is what we call the
business case what I justdescribed to you, and returning
to that as a very, it's aprudent practice. Because
business leaders get it. And Ialso think we need to kind of if
(30:05):
they try to take you off andinto a rabbit hole around, you
know, the politics of things, orthere's another rabbit hole, by
the way of, if we give people aninch around identity, they'll
take a mile, kind of like howyou were talking about Kim,
like, where does it end? Andlike, how many how many
incidences are we expected toaddress that are happening in
(30:25):
the external world, like, youknow, they they, in my book,
they picked out this quote, mostrecent example, executive team I
was working with, and there's aLatina identified employee that
came in on a Monday morning andsaid, somebody asked how their
weekend was, and there it wasduring 2020. And there was
(30:46):
marches and so much pain, somuch articulation of, of
suffering, and she had beenactive and all of that over the
weekend, and there had beenviolence and all the things that
were happening. She came in, andshe's like, my weekend was a
racist, hellscape, how wasyours? And these white leaders
kind of picked up on this. Andwe have this whole discussion
(31:07):
about the word hellscape. Andthis whole discussion about
Monday, and like, what, whatpeople are entitled to bring in
to the workplace. And it wasreally so interesting to just
dig into that and say, you know,so what do we expect people to
sort of hide and downplay andstuff into a corner and not talk
(31:29):
about? And how do we how do wewant people to bring their full
selves to work? What does thatmean? Where does the where's the
boundary? If we do one thing forone community, then what do we
do need to do for the othercommunities? And, you know, and
those that's a lot of like, tugof war, and these sessions,
because there's a lot ofdiscussion about it, like, does
it matter? Is it important? Howdo we do it? What do we do it
(31:50):
for? What if we havedisagreement, we have
disagreement around the abortionquestion. I mean, most of my
cut, my clients will say, ourworkforce is split on this
question. So then we say, okay,so how do we enable the
inclusion of that, and to beheard, but then, as a company,
(32:12):
what do you want your decisionto be around benefits? Those two
things can exist together andside by side? And how you
navigate this as you can? It'snot this one, or it's not a
binary? Yes, no, we agree, wedon't we say this, we don't say
whatever. It's a lot ofdifferent things that enable
(32:34):
people to be simultaneouslyheard and acknowledge the
diversity of opinion. And yet atthe same time, it's a choice on
the part of the institution togo a certain way and provide
certain things and to your pointcommunicators need to parse this
and communicate it in a verydelicate way. And I feel for the
(32:56):
communicator community, becausethis is hard to thread this
needle. I mean, that's just oneexample of many, that there, it
feels like you're kind of in abalancing act. And honestly,
Kim, this is the new job of acommunications professional,
you've got to know how to adviseyour leaders on how to hold the
space for all of this. And atthe same time, point your arrow
(33:20):
and your compass towards afuture and maintaining your
commitments to be being anemployer of choice. That is
thinking about and planning forand supporting a rapidly
diversifying workforce andenvironment. So I know I can't
like wrap this up in a nice,neat bow. But if you can ask the
(33:42):
right questions, and you cankind of surface a lot of these
things. And then keep your eyeon the ball about what the
future holds. And I think you'llbe able to help your leaders,
you know, make the rightdecision. And if they want to
sit in the middle of all of thisfine. Middle is okay for some
companies, your company's in themiddle, you know, you're in,
you're figuring it out, you'redoing a little of this and a
(34:02):
little of that, and you're theretrial balloons, and you're kind
of trying to find your voiceand, and you don't want to come
out like gangbusters on, youknow, 10 different issues
tomorrow. And you want to takeyour cue from maybe these
affinity groups that you've justformed, and they're just getting
started. And that is fine. Youneed to meet the organization
where they're at. You don't needand push a little bit. But I
(34:24):
wouldn't say I would never eversay throw your leaders and your
company into the deep end.Without having this sort of
muscle built for the deep end.You don't want to drown in the
deep end, you want the you wantthe skill to tread water there.
And you need to assess where isthe organization, where are my
leaders? What are we ready for?What are what is not going to
(34:46):
cause more resistance, but he'sgoing to enable the majority of
folks to feel heard to be onboard, maybe not agree, but
understand where we're going andunderstand that it's a
leadership imperative. That wasa long answer.
Kim Clark (35:04):
There's so much good stuff in there. Some things that
I want to highlight, you know,the decoupling of the pullet is
politicized. I can't say thatword. zation. Thank you. Thank
you for that. You're on EastCoast time. So you know, more
common office warmer. Yeah. Soyeah, it you know, that
decoupling absolutely has to hasto happen, because there's a
(35:26):
created narrative that actuallydoesn't exist. So my being gay,
or my being a woman, you know,is not, you know, in it has been
my identity has beenpoliticized. But just like being
a man, being white, you know,that that is somehow exempt of
being politicized. So it's justlike this decoupling and being
(35:49):
consistent about it, I think isis really key. And also, I love
all the analogies aroundtreading water. And you know,
you just, it was a nice layup tothe depth model that we talked
about in the book, the consciouscommunicator. excellent book.
Well, thank you for yourtestimonial. And Jennifer, I
really, we're very, verygrateful for your support of the
(36:13):
book, for sure. And in thatframework, it helps answer some
of those questions. You saidearlier, in that response,
leaders need to have theirquestions answered. Now, there's
two parts to it, I'm sure thatyou've run into as well as like,
some leaders will throw outthings, but they don't want to
know the answer. They don't wantto go, you know, it's like, it's
more of just like, you know,saying something to say
(36:34):
something, but they're notactually genuinely interested in
learning. But then there are thepeople who the leaders who do
want, you know, those questions,but they don't know where they
can get those answers from in away that they can receive them,
and know what to do with it,because I want empathy for
leaders, right, you know, theydidn't get to be where they are,
because they're incredible atdi, right. It wasn't part of
(36:57):
their performance, you know, asit climbed the ladder and
promoted, it was like, you know,there was no 360 When they were
a director level saying, How areyou on your di skills? Here,
they are now,
Unknown (37:10):
good at it like yesterday, I mean, yeah, listen,
Kim Clark (37:14):
and yet they have this pressure from the board's
pressure from customers pressurefrom employees, say something,
do something. So the Deaf modelhelps with that middle, like you
were talking about, like, youknow, it gets you into the work
in a meaningful transformable.That's not a word
transformational way. So thatthat was all of your points were
(37:37):
so key. And the other part ofsomething that I want to
highlight what from what youjust said is that communicators
can be those advisors to helpthose leaders get those
questions answered, they couldset things up, they can engage
in conversation themselves, andnot let comments like, we don't
(37:58):
want to do too much too soon. Bea decision. As you know, like,
that's the end of theconversation that needs to be
the beginning of theconversation. So what is too
much? What is too soon? Whatdoes that look like? But the
decoupling? I think that'sreally important for people to
hear and understand. And at thesame time, understand that, you
know, when you were talkingabout the Agree, disagree, it's
(38:22):
like my identity is not anegotiation, you know, that's
not a pawn, right. It's not,that's not negotiable. And what
you know, and on the abortiontopic that you were talking
about earlier, it's, it's thiscrossing of the line that we
need to keep each other incheck. So you can believe one
way. But if I believe anotherway, because I'm having a
(38:43):
different experience than you,you know, and so and then you're
having a different experiencethan me. So where you're coming
from feels very real to you. Andwhere I'm coming from is very
real for me. And then thenegotiation is not on my
identity, but the negotiation ishow do we coexist as colleagues,
to allow ourselves to honor ourexperiences in a way that we can
(39:08):
coexist and thrive together inthe same space? You know, that's
the negotiate, that's what needsto be negotiated that when
that's, that's thecommunication, the good
negotiation is not yourexperience trying to legislate
my experience and my decisionmaking, you know, and vice
versa. So it's a very richconversation. Point to it
(39:32):
language leads to behavior.That's why you know, I've so
much money on the communicatorsand really leading this work.
Okay, friends, we're actuallygoing to pause the conversation
right here. I know it is sogood. And it was really building
up momentum. You probably hateme right now. But the
conversation when we recordedwas so good. We just kept going
(39:53):
and going. So we're going tosplit it the sake of your time
and protecting your time. We'regoing to split This conversation
into two different episodes sokeep a lookout and find the
other half and the other part ofthis conversation with this
guest I know you're gonna loveit
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