EP26: Fatigue & Repair On The Way To EDIA

In this episode of FARSIGHT Chats, host Farah Bala engages with Lily Zheng, a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategist. They discuss addressing fatigue and achieving meaningful change on the road to equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-oppression. Lily shares their background, emphasizing the importance of leadership consulting and DEI survey assessments to ground DEI work in real data. They explain the motivations behind their work, rooted in personal experiences and the desire to create effective, inclusive workplaces. The conversation tackles issues like performative DEI, ineffective initiatives causing burnout, and the importance of grounding work in actionable data. They critique ineffective DEI efforts, such as unfulfilled promises and exploitative volunteerism within ERGs, and advocate for systemic solutions and communal approaches to healing from burnout. Lily argues that DEI work must be strategically aligned with genuine problem-solving and emphasize inclusive, long-term solutions. This episode highlights the importance of impactful, data-backed initiatives and collaboration within organizations to avoid superficial efforts and truly advance equity.

| KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED |

UNDERSTANDING THE DEI WORK

• DEI = Problem Solving: DEI isn’t just events or training—it’s systemic problem-solving aimed at measurable outcomes in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Efficacy over Optics: DEI efforts must be tied to real, data-driven impact—not feel-good interventions or buzzwords.

FATIGUE & BURNOUT

• Root Cause of Fatigue: Fatigue stems from a lack of impact—not just workload. When DEI efforts don’t lead to change, burnout increases.
• Action Fatigue > Survey Fatigue: People aren’t tired of giving feedback—they’re tired of seeing no action taken afterward.

PERFORMATIVE DEI & STRUCTURAL HARM

• Performative DEI = Ineffective DEI: Any initiative that doesn’t drive outcomes is, by definition, performative—regardless of intent.
• Setting Up DEI for Failure: Hiring DEI heads without power, budget, or support ensures burnout and erodes trust in the work.

ERGs & VOLUNTEERISM

• Unpaid Labor = Exploitation: Expecting ERGs or marginalized employees to solve systemic issues without resources leads to harm and burnout.
• Purpose Clarity is Key: ERGs must have defined goals (e.g., community vs. change-making) to avoid scope creep and exhaustion.

ALLYSHIP & ADVOCACY FATIGUE

• Micro-actions Aren’t Enough: Allyship isn’t about isolated gestures—it requires sustained, systemic collaboration for change.
• Diverse Forms of Advocacy: Everyone can contribute differently. There's no one “right” way to show up.

HARM, REPAIR & HEALING

• Repair Requires Systems Change: Individual self-care can’t fix systemic burnout. Collective and organizational repair is essential.
• Restorative & Transformative Justice: Healing must address interpersonal harm and the structural root causes that enable it.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY

• No Such Thing as ‘Water Under the Bridge’: Organizations must own past harm and prioritize ongoing repair.
• Outcomes Over Org Charts: Whether DEI reports to HR or not matters less than whether the work is effective.

| SHOW NOTES |

00:00 Welcome to FARSIGHT Chats

00:29 Introducing Today's Topic and Guest

03:25 Lily Zheng's Background and Approach

06:28 The Challenges of DEI Work

09:59 The Importance of Effective DEI Interventions

20:05 The Impact of Performative DEI

24:57 Diversity Fatigue and Its Consequences

30:03 The Role of ERGs and Volunteer...

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Far Sight Chats, your Guideto Navigating Complex and Important
Conversations on Society and Culture.
I'm your host, far Ababa,founder and CEO of Far Sight.
We specialize in leadership andorganizational development, focusing
on equity, diversity, and inclusion.
As core leadership competencies.

(00:22):
Join us in these conversationsthat aim to foster, understanding,
growth and positive change.
On today's episode, fatigueand repair on the way to EDIA.
That's equity, diversity,inclusion, anti-oppression.
I am joined by Lily Zang, a highlysought after DEI, consultant and
author, someone I deeply respect.

(00:44):
If you are a frequent reader of theHarvard Business Review or active
on LinkedIn, you have definitelycome across their articles.
Lily and I sat down for thisconversation at the end of 2022.
Around that time, there was adeep exhaustion revolving around
EDIA conversations, especially forprofessionals in the field suffering
from burnout and apathy in their work.

(01:08):
This became an opportunity to addressthe relationship between the decades
long resistance to the work andhow that contributed to not just
fatigue, but also lower morale andproductivity within the workplace.
Lilly has been a singular voiceamong all the noise within the
world of equity and inclusion.

(01:30):
They encourage not just theirclients, but the entire industry to
think in deeper systemic ways thatcreate real organizational change.
Their methods are always data backedand embedded within all aspects of the
organization, which is something thatwe at Far sight work on through the
redefining of leadership competencies.

(01:50):
That's why we love them so much.
For example, today in 2025, when theentire world is either backing down from
EDIA or defending it, Lilly has beenquestioning it, questioning our current
practices, and has instead been offeringus new ways to reset and think about it.
I'd highly recommend reading theirHarvard Business Review article on

(02:13):
their fair framework that encouragesleaders and organizations to think about
continuing and deepening their work.
Follow them on LinkedIn, get their books.
There is a wealth of information to learnfrom them, and as you listen in today.
We invite you to consider what are someineffective interventions of EDIA that

(02:34):
you have witnessed in your workplace, andhow has it impacted your organization?
Conversely, what are some successfulinterventions you have experienced
that have paired specificproblems to effective solutions?
Work exhaustion could indefinitelylead to fatigue in one's personal life.
So how do you identify when theselines start to blur, and what steps

(02:56):
do you take to keep that line drawn?
Join us on this journey oflearning and unlearning in today's
episode of Far Sight Chats.
Thank you for joining us, Lilly, for thisvery specific topic, fatigue and repair on
the road to equity, diversity, inclusion,anti-oppression, lots to discuss here.

(03:21):
But before we start, I'd like to handit over to you and hear from you.
Who are you, what do you do,and why do you do what you do?
Hi folks.
My name is Lily.
I use they them pronouns.
I am a, what I call diversity, equityand inclusion strategist and consultant
working primarily with medium sizedcompanies, so increasingly lots of

(03:44):
small companies and large companiesas well on getting things right with
this work on achieving diversity,equity, and inclusion as outcomes.
I spend most of my time these daysspread across leadership consulting
and working with senior leaders andexecutives on how they should be
doing this work and leading this work.

(04:05):
And then also doingDEI survey assessments.
So one of the primary bits of workthat I do is helping companies develop,
administer, and then analyze theresults from comprehensive DEI surveys
so that they can ground the workthat they do in their organization in
real data, solving real challenges,and can hold themselves accountable.

(04:27):
So why do I do what I do?
I got into this workbecause like many people.
I saw organizations, workplaces, companiesbeing kind of awful places to be.
I had my own experiences of workplacediscrimination, but more pressingly.
I just saw that so many folks who hadtheir hearts and minds in the right

(04:49):
place were nevertheless failing todesign the sorts of workplaces that
they deserve, that their employeesdeserved and that all of us deserve.
And so I got at the DEI, not withthe mindset of changing people or
necessarily fixing how we thinkabout these big problems, but really
helping folks make their impacts,their outcomes, match up with their

(05:11):
intentions to design workplaces that work.
For everyone and to stop just saying allof the buzzwords of diversity, equity,
inclusion, belonging, allyship, right?
So on and so forth, while notactually moving the needle.
So that's why I do the work that I do.
That's why I wrote my latestbook, DEID, constructed.
It's great to see folks with the book.

(05:33):
That's why I've been in theweeds with this work for a
little more than seven years now.
And yeah, it's definitely been quitea journey for me and quite a journey
for the folks who I work with as well.
If you haven't alreadygot this, please do.
The reason being it is so actionable.
I find myself very fortunate as apractitioner that we're in a time

(05:53):
where we have analysis, we have data,we have more concepts and vocabulary.
And we need to be held accountableas practitioners as well.
And I think you do this so stunningly.
It's truly a no-nonsense guide.
I personally appreciate the timethat you've taken at the beginning
of this book to talk about whythis work has not worked before.

(06:14):
Very actionable, very tactical, and it'sall about accountability, and I think
it resonates for us at Far Sight becausethat's what we're driven to as well.
Again, intention is not enough.
What is the impact?
Centering the people at all times.
How do you keep going?
Because this industry has been underattack, practitioners are under attack.
There is so muchresistance to do the work.

(06:36):
What keeps you going?
What keeps you motivated, and what keepsyou doing what you do with your best self?
Thank you so much for asking this questionat the beginning of the conversation.
This is everyone's favoriteending question, which.
I mean, you know how it goes, right?
There's a big long webinar or workshop,and then in the last two minutes, like,
tell me people, how do you do self-care?

(06:58):
And it's never enough time to givethis question the answer it deserves.
So thanks for starting us off with it.
I would say my way of keeping myselfgoing is through hope, but not just
an abstract hope that comes frombelieving the world will be a better
place, but from a very tangible hopethat for me, is related to efficacy.

(07:21):
If I can know how I'm going to create abetter world, if I can have confidence.
In not only having the right knowledge,but having the right skills and doing the
right work, then the work stops becomingthis sort of endless series of hurdles or
trauma and grief and whatnot, and ratherthis bird's eye view journey of we know

(07:44):
the systems in place that are toxic.
We've been seeing the same systems for50 years, a hundred years, 200 years.
That can either be depressingor it can be grounding.
We know that thechallenges haven't changed.
Even if their manifestations takedifferent shape in the news media
each week, we know that at the core,they're the same root challenges.

(08:04):
We're solving for the same problems,and any systemic problem is solved
effectively by a systemic solution.
And all systemic solutions take time.
And so if I can ground myself in my workin the long term goal of changing systems,
then I. I'm allowed to have bad days.
I'm allowed to have bad weeks.
The world's allowed tohave bad weeks, right?

(08:27):
But at the core, I knowwhat it is I'm doing.
I know how it is.
I'm going to do the work.
I know how to measure the effectivenessof my own work, so I know it's working,
and that allows me to keep going.
It allows me to takebreaks when I need them.
It allows me to ask forhelp when I need it.
It allows me to drop off a callafter two or 3:00 PM on a Friday

(08:48):
afternoon in the beginning of Decemberand say, I'm done for a month.
I'm leaving December 9th today, and notcoming back until January, which is great.
So again, it's not just about recognizingthat, oh, the world's gonna get better.
It's all going to be okay.
It's for me personally, grounded in myown feelings of efficacy and a way of

(09:08):
looking at this work that sees it trulyas a long-term journey and something that
requires that myself and everyone doingthis work is prepared for the long haul.
I love this so much.
Really just the acknowledgement thatthis is a marathon and will take as
long as it takes until we get it done.
Until we get it.
You talk a lot about doing thework and doing it right and I feel

(09:31):
like this is such a big part of it.
Just grounding ourselves in this isnot the one of 90 minute workshop,
this is not the one off keynote.
There are layers and nuances to unpack,to get to the systemic dysfunctions,
and then to support every organizationto address them, dismantle them,
and then recreate and rebuild.

(09:52):
When you say it's about doing the workand doing it right, what does that take?
What does it take to do it?
Right?
Well, let's first talk about what the workis, and this is where DEI historically
has floundered a bit because no onecan agree on what the actual work is.
Is it trainings?
Is it workshops?
Is it speaking engagements?
Is it racial sensitivity?

(10:13):
Is it policies?
Is it statements on a website?
And I push folks to thinkabout it a little differently.
Everything I named right now isan example of an intervention.
And intervention is an educated guessat solving a problem at fixing a system.
And in the work that I do, one of thethings that I say a lot is we can't be

(10:37):
pursuing solutions without pairing themto the problems they're trying to solve.
There's no point in teaching peoplehow to do bystander intervention
unless you understand that there'sa problem of folks not speaking up.
There's no point in increasing leadershipcompetency to address microaggressions.
Unless there are challenges withleaderships addressing microaggressions.

(11:00):
And so the work is really anythingthat effectively changes systems,
solves problems, and creates theoutcomes of greater diversity,
greater inclusion, and greater equity.
And that can take any form.
It can take many forms.
It takes different forms necessarilyfor different workplaces, for

(11:21):
different departments, in differentworkplaces, for different leaders.
But essentially, as I write in thebook, anything that measurably moves
the needle from lower diversity, lowerequity, lower inclusion to higher
of any of those things, that's thework that's just measurably the work.
And anything that doesn't do that,even if it looks good or sounds good,

(11:44):
or has a prominent practitioner's namestamped on it, or last 90 minutes or
last two years, if it doesn't do that.
And it's not effective work.
The only work that shouldmatter to us is work that works.
We want to ensure that our effortsare succeeding and when we can
actually understand how all of ourworkplaces have cut and so messed up,

(12:06):
that allows us to effectively problemsolve and prioritize the initiatives
that will actually fix real problems.
So that's the work and that's what itmeans to do work that works for me.
There is a direct correlation of ifthose expectations are not aligned of
what is the work and how are we gonnastart it, that will contribute to the

(12:27):
fatigue as well as the resistance.
And so to be able to have that clarityand something you do so well in this
book, when you start talking aboutthe definitions of diversity, equity,
inclusion, what I appreciate is, assomeone who is saying this to our
clients as well, is that there isno one off of what this looks like.
Diversity can be very different, DEI work.

(12:50):
Creating equity within yourorganization can be very different
for one organization based on thebreakdown of dimensions of identity
that exist and based on one's goals.
When you think of fatigue inthis work, what comes up for you?
For me, the very first association Ihave with fatigue is not feeling like
my efforts are achieving anything.

(13:12):
That is the number one feeling that makesme tired and exhausted and fatigued.
And by the way, I felt it.
Very often I will have engagedin a long project that's
been pushing for this thing.
Had this feeling actually lastyear when, gosh, we had designed
an incredible DEI survey.
We had a 97% response rate.

(13:33):
We got all of the findings, wepublished them, we had a set of
strategic recommendations, andthen the CEO forces everyone back
to the office a hundred percent ofthe time, five days a week, rapidly
starts hemorrhaging their workforce.
Everybody has lost trust in them.
And meanwhile, I'm here tryingto explain the findings of this

(13:54):
incredible years long process.
And everyone's saying to me, Lily,how in the hell can you be talking
about DEI when this company is likedestroying its population of people of
color and like sabotaging everythingthrough this return to office policy.
This is a disaster.
And I had told the CEO, I hadtold the, please don't, it's

(14:15):
going to ruin everything.
And it did.
It completely compromised every singlething I did over the last two years and
that I have never felt more tired in mylife because for me, fatigue has never
just been about the amount of energywe extend at a given point in time.
Energy is definitely a part of, but I'veabsolutely been at points in my career

(14:36):
where I've just put in the hours andreally worked hard and I've seen great
outcomes from it, and I didn't feel tired.
I felt energized, I felt empowered,and I've also had times where I'll put
in not too much effort, but I know fora fact that all of that effort was a
waste of time and I'll feel exhausted.
So for me, fatigue is about efficacy.
The more we feel like our work ishaving an impact, the more we'll be

(15:00):
able and feel excited to sustain it, themore we feel like we're just throwing
our time and energy into the void.
The more likely we are to feel exhaustedand tired regardless of the actual
number of hours we spend on a given task.
This is something thatpractitioners say to me a lot.
They say, Lily, I'm notactually working that much.

(15:20):
How is it I feel so burned out?
I feel like an imposter in my burnout.
Like, I'm not working 90 hour weeks.
Why do I feel so awful?
And the answer is because it doesn'tmatter how long you're working, but if you
work for 10 hours or 20 hours or 30 hoursand you feel like none of that work made
a difference, you're gonna feel exhausted.
And that's why, for me, in a metasense, I was so excited to have this

(15:43):
conversation with you because everythingabout my work is making sure that
practitioners are more effective.
And there's not only a reason to dothis because it's better for the work
we do and for workplaces, but becauseit's better for ourselves, the more
we can feel like we're doing effectivework, the more we can sustain ourselves.
Given all of the challengesof doing effective DEI.

(16:06):
Thank you for sharing that example,and I'm so sorry that two plus years
of work, just sometimes that happens.
Wish it didn't.
Oh my goodness.
What does it concretely look like?
Ensuring that your peoplefeel seen, heard, and valued.
And in that moment, what I'm hearing, thatyou were not heard, you were not listened
to, you were hired for something, andthen your recommendation was not heard.

(16:29):
And this may not have beenpart of your process, but for
me, that can get personal.
And then our own personal efficacy, notjust organizational efficacy given what
we do, but also our method of working.
Our tried and tested workjust falls to the wayside.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I definitely had some of that.
Honestly, for me, I don'tmind not being listened to.

(16:52):
I don't think every leader shouldlisten to everything the consultant
says, but here's the thing.
If you disagree with me right then youneed to have a good reason for why.
And if you are going to defend yourreason, show me that you're right.
I want you to prove to me thatyou're right if you disagree with me,
because that's the foundation thatall productive conflict is built on.

(17:13):
Like we have to know that we'reworking towards the same things.
So if this leader had said, Hey Lily,I really thought that this policy was
going to be the right choice for anynumber of reasons and that we could
pursue our DEI work effectively,but it didn't turn out that way.
Mm-hmm.
We should talk about what to do next.
It wouldn't have beenas exhausting for me.

(17:34):
But the fact that they doubled downand they said, okay, DEI, whatever.
That comes second.
This comes first.
And even after reports of the negativeimpact of this policy, especially on
DEI, the fact that this leader saiddoesn't matter, I. Doesn't matter to me.
Right?
It wasn't that theydidn't listen to my work.
That's fine.
They don't always have to listen to me.

(17:55):
It's that I got the clearest signthat my work wasn't valued and
that they would compromise my owneffectiveness, in my opinion, for nothing.
I don't think they got anything outof that policy beyond hemorrhaging
like 20% of their workforce, which Idon't know why anyone would do that.
I'm sure the guy thought it was a goodidea, but yeah, it's just a tragedy

(18:15):
that all that work would just gettossed into the garbage for nothing
to speak about the value of DEI.
That also is indicative ofhow power is held within our
organization and how power is used.
Nothing to do with this particular CEO,but just systemic ways in which, you
know, once a decision has to be made.
The steps that are taken arenot taken towards that and

(18:39):
who it impacts constantly.
This makes me think about thenewly appointed headss of DEI at so
many organizations all across thecountry in the last three years.
One of the things that happened withinorganizations is people started asking
their leaders for accountability andthese new positions were created and

(19:01):
the pattern that I keep hearing isthe position was created, but there
was no relationship to the main tableof power where decisions are made.
Mm-hmm.
So this position has no agency.
It's a title.
There are expectations, notjust leadership, but also
the rest of the organization.
And this position is notsupported for success.

(19:22):
Yeah.
Right.
No clear goals.
It's just like you are the head of DEI.
We checked off that box.
Right.
And then, you know, stating the obvioushow that can be to burnout so quickly.
Yeah.
Burnout.
Turnover, terrible retentionrates for folks in those roles.
Cascading effects ofeveryone in that workplace.

(19:44):
Losing trust in DEI, losing trustin that DEI leader losing trust
in all of their leaders, makingall future DEI efforts harder.
I know for a fact that the turnoverfor those heads of DEI roles
is something ridiculous, right?
Six months to a year formost of those roles, right?
No one even lasts more than that.
So.
Yeah, that's absolutely whatI've been seeing as well.

(20:05):
It's a perfect example of what the phraseperformative DEI actually means, right?
It's not just some leader cacklingin a corner somewhere just, oh yes,
I'm going to put someone in thisrole and set them up to fail wahaha.
Instead, it's the outcome that happenswhen you don't give people the tools
to do what you expect them to do andthen blame them for its failure, right?

(20:28):
Performative, DEI work is DEI work.
That doesn't succeed.
It's DEI work.
That doesn't work.
And if you refuse to give the work,the resources, the headcount, the
budget, the tools, the power to beeffective, then you are essentially
guaranteeing it's failure, which is whywe have so many examples of this in the
last few years going down this path.

(20:51):
Lily, can we name a fewother forms of performative?
DEI work that have a directconnection leading to fatigue?
We talked about the heads of DEIspace you do assessment work.
Is there fatigue in that space at all?
There's a couple questionsthere that I wanna answer.
One is, what are the typesof performative DEI work?

(21:12):
I actually write in the book that that'sa misleading question because there are an
infinite number of types of performative.
DEI work because performative iswhat we call DEI work that failed
Performative is what we call DEI workundertaken by people we don't trust.
So the secret here is if I hadsomeone I trust with my life,

(21:33):
they do A DEI initiative and theyfail, how am I going to treat it?
I'd be like, they didn't get it right.
They were close, but theydidn't get it right this time.
I'm sure next time it'll be better.
I won't call it performativebecause I trust them.
Now, on the other hand, if someoneI don't trust at all does A DEI
initiative, what am I going to say?
That's performative.
That's done for show.

(21:53):
That's not going to work.
That's not effective.
So one thing we need to understand,taking a step back, is there is
actually no list of performativebehaviors and non performative
behaviors because it's all contextual.
And clients ask for this a lot.
They say, Lily, what are the 10 mostperformative DEI things that we can do?
And I'll say, well, are you askingme for a list of 10 things you're

(22:15):
currently doing that are failing?
Because I can do that.
But it's more important torecognize, to what extent do your
stakeholders still trust you?
So they don't trust you anymore.
I can't give you any list.
They're just gonna thinkeverything you do is performative.
So with that as a meta comment,I'll instead answer, what
ineffective DEI work am I seeingthat makes people feel fatigued?

(22:36):
And there's a whole bunch.
One big example that we just talkedabout is hiring people per role and
not giving them the resources to do it.
They burn out, they feel fatigued.
Another is promising that you're ableto create change, that you're not.
So broken promises alwayscreate fatigue no matter what.
So if you say, Hey, ERG, employeeresource group, you're going to

(22:58):
have a hand in, let's say, decidingour next CEO, for example, and then
they don't, that promise is dropped.
Fatigue, disappointment,talking about surveys.
When people submit a survey,essentially that is them saying,
in exchange for sharing myvulnerability, I'm expecting that you
are going to act on this feedback.

(23:19):
If no one acts on the feedback,then people feel fatigued.
Something folks in the surveyspace say often is, there's no
such thing as survey fatigue.
There's action fatigue.
We're not tired of filling outsurveys, we're tired of filling out
surveys that never get acted on.
If you can take action every month,then I won't fill out a survey every

(23:42):
damn month until the end of the decade.
But if you can only take actiononce every year, and you have me
fill out a survey every month.
Why?
Why go through all that trouble to sharesomething that's never going to be used?
So I hate to sound like abroken record, but it's about
efficacy at the end of the day.
Because if you're filling out a survey,you're being vulnerable, you're sharing

(24:03):
a lot of good data, and it gets acted onyou at the person that's contributing.
You feel like you had an impact,you feel like you had effectiveness.
But if you do all that for nothing, thenyou don't feel that you feel like shit.
You feel terrible, right?
And people ask Lily to diffuseburnout or to resolve fatigue.

(24:24):
Do we survey once every sixmonths or once every 12?
Do we surveyance every onemonth or once every two?
And again, it's overfocusing on the solution.
The true question is how fastcan you take action survey at the
pace that you can take action?
And the vast majority of DEIinitiatives are like this.
There's no magic bullet interms of exactly how you
should be doing an initiatives.

(24:45):
But the way you go about it, theproblem it's solving, the way you're
able to follow up on it that decideswhat you do, not the initiative
that's more or less effective.
It's how you do it thatmakes it effective.
Can we talk about what you have calleddiversity fatigue from both the dominant
groups and the non-dominant groups?
Yeah, so it's a whole lot of talkingabout diversity, which exhausts

(25:08):
everyone and a whole little of action.
No one does anything.
No one fixes anything.
It's endless conversations aboutrace, endless, courageous, or brave
face conversations, and nothingchanges at the end of the day.
That's what diversity fatiguefundamentally refers to.
People feeling like they're goinginto all of these really tough spaces

(25:29):
and not getting anything out of it.
Look to be fair, I think in certainsettings it's very important to have
that sort of conflict, to be able toexplore the outcomes or the impact
of white supremacy on everyone.
To be able to explore the polarizationthat's occurring in our country, in the
US and in other places around the world.
To be able to explore homophobic andtransphobic ideas in our communities

(25:54):
or anti-blackness in our communities.
It's really critical to explore thesethings for our own personal growth.
But here's to say, I can't tell youany example of a hard conversation that
isn't draining for the people in it.
And I don't know about you, but for me,if I go into an exhausting conversation
that makes me cry, that makes me upset, Iwant to feel like that was worth my time.

(26:19):
And so I would much ratherlike to see at the end of that.
Policy change, process change, culturechange, more people willing to talk about
this, greater comfort talking about this.
So if I see none of thosethings, how am I going to feel?
I'm never going to openup at work ever again.
Why would I suffer like this for nothing?

(26:39):
And then a week later they say, Hey,we're having another hard conversation.
Am I gonna show up?
Nope.
That's called diversity fatigue.
Not because the conversationsthemselves are bad.
I think it's very important totalk about these things, but
because nothing ever comes of it.
Yeah.
And there's only so many times we canlet down our walls and get hurt before we
recognize that our best shot at survivingis to not let down those walls to start.

(27:04):
So many companies are making this mistake.
They keep throwing these hardconversations at people, which
to their credit, some of them arereally good and then they do nothing
with it except for have anotherhard conversation six months later.
Then their workforce says, we're sickand tired of talking about diversity,
and their leaders are flummoxed.
Of course, they're tiredabout talking about diversity.

(27:24):
All it's done has hurt them.
It hasn't helped anyone.
When we engage in these hardconversations, sometimes I see folks
saying hard conversations are usefuland deserve to happen for their own
sake, and that's completely wrong.
That's absolutely misguided.
Hard conversations exist for a purpose.
If you can't follow up andachieve that purpose, don't have

(27:45):
the conversation until you can.
I'm loving that every single piecethat we're talking about within
fatigue leads to assistance, andif those don't change, this becomes
more harmful for the non-dominantgroups, for those marginalized
communities and more frustrating andresistant for the dominant groups.
Okay, you want me to engagein these conversations?
I am, but I don't see anything elsechanging around me, so why should I

(28:08):
continue to engage in these conversationsor, oh, that was the in thing for 2020.
2021. Now can we get back to work?
Right.
What I see from the dominant ormajority populations is this growing
cynicism, that these conversationsare just a way for folks to vent
their frustrations with white men.
And frankly, if there's nofollow up to those conversations,

(28:30):
that's exactly what they are.
I'm not even gonna pretend otherwise.
If you get a whole bunch of whitemen in a room and then a whole bunch
of, let's say, women of color, queer,trans, disabled folks, and you say,
let's talk about white supremacy.
It's just gonna involve people going here.
All the ways in which white supremacymanifests in our culture that benefits
white men, and this is how it harms me.
This isn't a new tactic,this isn't a new initiative.

(28:52):
The DEI industry actuallyemployed tactics like this.
Back in the 1930s, they were calledencounter groups, and the entire idea
of an encounter group is you're bringingin a bunch of white men, bringing a
bunch of people of color and have onegroup talk about how messed up the other
group is to change their attitudes andmake them into more tolerant people.

(29:13):
It doesn't work like that.
It makes people really pissed, likereally upset and then it makes them
engage in backlash behaviors thatactually worsened discrimination.
There was research features in theHarvard Business Review by Frank Dobbins
and Alexandra Collab that essentiallysaid the most common DEI initiatives
actually lower diversity withincompanies because they infuriate white

(29:35):
men so much that there's retaliation.
We can't keep doing this.
It's been more than half a centuryof these sorts of initiatives
and it's not that talking aboutrace is bad, don't conclude that.
It's that deploying these interventionswithout the care and the follow-up
they deserve meaningfully causesreal harm to marginalized groups.
And that's one of thecore ideas in the book.

(29:56):
Unless we're responsible in how wepractice our work, we can absolutely
become part of the problem.
There's something about what you saidwith the encounter groups that's.
Making me think of ERGs withinorganizations that are not built
effectively, that do not have the rightamount of sponsorship and structural
support that experience the same spacethat they become just spaces for those

(30:21):
courageous, whether it's called courageousconversations or venting, and there is no
real clarity in the purpose of the group.
In the very beginning, the model of anERG was actually the one size fits all
the sort of basically a multipurposespace for venting, for community building,
for organizing, for organizationalchange, and so on and so forth.

(30:41):
It happened to work outin that one example.
But the model has problems in that noteveryone from a marginalized group wants
to do exactly the same thing with an ERG.
And every part of that setof expectations is valid.
It's important to givepeople space to vent.
It's important to give people aspace to being part of community.

(31:03):
And it's important to involve people inmaking change within the organization.
But these are very different things.
Giving people space to vent, that's free.
We can do that anytime we could makethis webinar a spaced event right now,
it wouldn't take any additional money.
It just takes intentions.
But some of the other things,let's say organizing, making change
within the organization, that's nota free volunteer effort anymore.

(31:26):
That's something that takes time,money, investment, so on and so forth.
And so what we're seeing right now inthe DEI space is essentially scope creep.
So workplaces are saying, Hey ERGs,you're full of passionate people.
Let's give you the task of doing somethingthat, by the way, we'd have to pay a
consultant a hundred grand for, butwe'll just ask you to do it for free.

(31:47):
Can you please design a survey?
Administer the survey, do thesurvey analysis, conduct additional
follow up interviews, focus groups,one-on-ones, write a report, create
a strategy, announce the strategy,communicate the strategy, and help
follow up with five initiatives.
And the ERG says, if we don'tdo it, is it gonna happen?
The leader says no, and then the ERGsays, well, we'll try, and then they're

(32:10):
all burned out within three months.
I wish it wasn't common.
It's very common.
Essentially leaders exploiting thepassion of marginalized employees to push
a whole ton of work on them for free.
By the way, that doesn't just hurt them.
That hurts the organization becausepeople who join ERGs, I mean
they're not DEI experts, they'repeople with lived experience.

(32:31):
They're doing other jobs, theyhave no idea what they're doing.
And I say this with loveto ERG members, right?
But I wouldn't hire ERG members todo survey analysis unless they have
a background in survey analysis.
And so when you rely on volunteerlabor, not only does it devalue,
DEI work, but it can be dangerous.
And that sometimes volunteerscan do harm themselves in the way

(32:51):
that practitioners who don't knowwhat they're doing can do harm.
I worked with a company where theirfirst iteration of A DEI survey, they had
designed it themselves, had a whole bunchof really antagonistic questions that you
would never put on a survey of just, doyou believe that white supremacy is good?
And I'm like, why?
Why would you survey that?
A hundred percent of peopleare going to answer no.

(33:13):
But a good chunk of those peopleare going to absolutely hate
whoever designed this survey.
This is a terrible practice and theydesigned this survey that pissed off
a bunch of people, including seniorleadership and then led to them dropping
the hammer on DEI efforts for the restof the year 'cause it was such a fiasco.
So anyways, I say all of this to saythat if you don't value DEI work,

(33:35):
if you don't give it the budget, therole clarity, the resources that it
requires, it's just bad for everyone.
It hurts people.
You know, the other thread of fatigue thatyou just brought up is one's experience
and relationship with DEI practitioners.
And if you've not had good experiences,that's gonna create a different
kind of fatigue that's gonna preventyou from wanting to do more in

(33:57):
that arena for your organization.
Absolutely.
Something I get reached out to a lotis saying, Lily, we brought in a DEI
practitioner, we found the cheapest personwe could and we regret that immensely.
That was such a bad session.
I didn't wanna make thebook full of horror stories.
But there were some, there were somepractitioners who used like actively

(34:19):
racist language from the 1600 todescribe the different racial groups.
There were practitionersthat literally can't talk in
anything except for buzzword.
So they would just be like, I'm hereto promote the psychological safety
of the inclusive intersectional groupto promote equity and belonging for
allied communities in this populationto ensure that the inclusive equity

(34:41):
score of our unconscious biases.
And I'm like, I'm dying.
Stop talking.
Right on.
Yeah.
So when you bring in practitionerslike that, it's not good for anyone.
It creates animosity and distrust.
It makes people feel likeDEI is full of hot air.
And honestly, having seen someof those things myself, I'm
embarrassed for the industry.

(35:01):
I'm just like, if that'show people see it, I get it.
Like I get why you're like DEI.
Mm, not for me.
It's a really good call to action to makesure that every practitioner is able to do
that self-reflection and self-assessmentand just have the barometer because the
work is evolving and changing as well.
And if we're not current andrelevant, then we really have

(35:22):
to do that self-assessment.
You talked about volunteerism within ERGs.
I wanna transfer that totalking about advocacy and
allyship fatigue a little bit.
And this might be within organizations,within communities and society as well.
There has been this huge call to actionaround we have to stand up for each other,
bystander speak up list, that et cetera.

(35:44):
And there is a crescendoand then it dies down.
And I can almost anticipate, wereyou tying it back to efficacy
as well, which Absolutely.
But is there any other nuance aroundadvocacy and allyship fatigue?
So the vast majority of allyshipefforts we give people are
super flashy, one and dones.

(36:04):
So here's an example.
Let's say it's Trans Awareness Week,which comes around once a year.
And Farrah, what if you say, Lily, I justwanna be a good ally to trans people.
What am I going to do?
And then I say, you know what?
The one thing we need is for you tospeak up when people misgender me.
Which that's a good practice speaking up.

(36:25):
When you see someone misgendering,that's great, that's good.
And then you say, okay, great.
I have my job as an ally.
I am gonna speak up whensomeone misgenders you.
And then let's say a week later,someone misgenders me and you say,
no Lily's pronouns, are they thattriumphant applause celebration.
Then what?
You've done it right?
It's over, it's done.
There's a lot of energy,there's a lot of effort.

(36:47):
What else do I do?
And then we wait next yeartill next Trans Awareness Week.
And I'm like, Hey, it'd be niceif people could use my pronouns.
And you said, Hmm, I can speak upwhen someone misgenders you again.
Right?
And we just get up in theseendless cycles of just little
tiny micro behaviors that we do.
When honestly, if you ask me, we need tobe fixing the real big systemic problems.

(37:09):
If I instead said, youknow what we need to do?
Our company doesn't have any sortof trans-inclusive healthcare.
Let's organize a movement to change that.
That's gonna require you and me andmy colleagues and your colleagues,
my friends, your friends, that'sgonna require hundreds of people.
Let's rally together, let's organize.
We have some meetings nextweek and the week after.

(37:31):
This is the goal of it.
We're gonna try to get this companyto work with better benefits
providers, and we're gonna do this.
It might take six months, it mighttake longer, but let's get to work.
That's a dramatically different callto action than, please help people
use my pronouns, Farra, right?
Like, it's not that microactions are not effective, it's

(37:51):
that we keep stopping there.
We keep saying allyship is about doingtiny things to support each other.
Uhuh allyship is about working togetherwith communities to end inequity.
Full stop, right?
If the inequity isn't budging,then you're not doing allyship.
I don't care what you're saying or whatyou're doing, or how often you're doing,
and we're not building enough movements.

(38:12):
We're not organizing together.
We're not rallying together withour communities and solidarity
to fix these big problems.
Instead, we're over focusing onjust the little highly visible
stuff that makes us sound good onsocial media and it's not working
and people are sick and tired of it.
So can we talk a little bit aboutthe impact of social media, of our

(38:33):
current you, you talked about it's thework about doing it in communities,
building communities, building newsystems, and then you have a very
specific opinion about the collectiveversus the individualized piece.
And when you bring in social media,it's all about the soundbite.
It's all about, okay, I remember thisvery clearly during the women's march.

(38:54):
There was this rallied, we have todisrupt, we have to this, we have to that.
And everyone was doing, in myperspective was do what you can.
And I remember having a call witha dear friend who had just had her
baby and I had time, I had capacity.
So yeah, I was going to protest.
And I remember we were on a catch up calland she felt so guilty and she was like,

(39:16):
oh my God, you're doing amazing work.
And I was like, what am I doing?
I have time.
So yeah, I'm showing up.
Yeah, but I can't do that.
And I was like, becauseyou have a baby at home.
And it was such a great exampleof the messaging around and
I was like, do what you can.
Raise a good son, right?
Raise a conscious child who has thenuance and vocabulary that's your bit.

(39:38):
Someone else who is traveling nonstop.
I was like, if you can afford it,contribute with your paycheck.
Everyone is a different way of showing up.
However, the messaging can be very siloed.
So your thoughts on how thatcreates even more fatigue?
It absolutely does.
When we prescribe there only being oneway to be like a good ally, then we

(40:03):
start getting ourselves into trouble.
Even in the book, I talk about the factthat using stated symbols like good ally
or good anti-racist is really dangerousbecause the goalposts, first of all can
move, and second of all, the goalpostscan be completely divorced from the
problem we're fixing, for example.
If my theory of change is protestmovement, results in greater

(40:27):
awareness, results in changedactions, results in changed systems,
maybe that's my theory of change.
And I can say attending this protest isgood, but we need to make sure that people
in the protest change the behaviors,that those behaviors change systems and
that we create a better society together.
So if it was me and I'm designingan accountability system for it, I'd

(40:49):
make sure that everyone who showsup follows up in these waived by
assess the extent to which they dothese follow on behaviors out, assess
their efficacy to change systems.
And yet, what do we do?
We say going to a protestmakes you a good ally.
Not going to a protestmakes you a bad ally.
End of story, period.
Which is not a theory of change at all.
That's, I hate to sayit, virtue signaling.

(41:10):
That's using one little activity,one micro behavior as a way to
assess whether someone's good or bad.
And that's absolutely whatsocial media incentivizes.
Like go on LinkedIn.
When someone has just been a part ofa multi-month effort to, let's say,
achieve parental leave at their company,how many likes does that typically get?

(41:31):
Not much, but if someone stops on thestreet and tells a wonderful story
about how they saw a homeless man andoh, they spared five minutes or $5
from their wallet to give that mansome money and said, God bless you.
Like, how many likes does I get?
Millions.
Which one actually changed any system?
The first one.

(41:51):
Which one makes us feel like we're goodpeople or that they're good people?
The second one.
Whether we're wired this wayor social media is designed to
incentivize us to engage in this way.
But everybody loves a feelgood storyabout individuals helping individuals.
No one can spare any time for storiesabout systems becoming better.
Yeah.
And yet we know that all of theinequities that we face in the world

(42:15):
are enabled by systems at scale.
It's not just there's a couple badpeople in the world and we gotta root 'em
out and everything's going to be fine.
It's that there's so many good peoplein the world who are nevertheless
oppressed by these systems who becomethe oppressors through these systems.
And this has been happeningfor eons and changing.

(42:36):
It takes time and energy and effort.
But we don't have theattention span for that.
We don't value that.
It doesn't look the same.
It's not as shiny or flashy.
Yeah.
And that's how we get exhausted becausewe're over here going like, I keep giving
$5 to homeless men, and I think I'm agood person, but I haven't fixed anything.
Oh, would you like to sign on tothis policy to have a new homeless

(42:56):
shelter created in your neighborhood?
Oh, no, no, no.
Never think about my property values.
And so we can engage in theselittle micro positive behaviors,
but then become part of the problemsystemically at the same time, and
we don't recognize that dissonance.
Yeah.
The other dissonance I hear is theinsistence to fix this and solve
it, which is the complete antithesisto the fact that this is a journey.

(43:17):
This does take time, thought,intentionality, and that the concepts
and processes are evolving as we arecreating our lived experience with it.
And so it just devolves thatcomplexity completely in that
headspace of, oh, I have to fix this.
And then not to in any way devaluethose individual feel good moments,

(43:39):
but to your point, it has become thestatus of, okay, this is the good
part of my life that I will put on.
And then that's then with thealgorithms of social media, that's
what attracts one's attention.
That's what increases the like.
We're not actually thinking about towhat extent we are fixing systems.
We're thinking about what ways wecan signal to others that we're

(43:59):
good people, and those two thingsare not necessarily overlapping.
I wanna unpack this other side of allyshipand see if you have thoughts on this.
Where I hear this a lot that,look, I'm here to do my job.
I'm not here to do advocacy, right?
I just happen to have the skin color,or I happen to have this form of
gender expression, or I speak thislanguage, but I didn't ask for this.

(44:21):
And now there there's an expectation thatI have to do this advocacy stuff and I
have to speak up, and that takes awayfrom my role or what I want to be doing.
And then this other side, I hear,again from a marginalized perspective
of wanting to show up for anothermarginalized community or individual.
And what I notice is that, again,the expectation of the time that it

(44:45):
takes, that there is an expectationthat it has to be a switch.
Like I said something about it, itnow needs to change immediately.
And then of course when itdoesn't, that devolves into
exhaustion, fatigue, and burnout.
So what are your thoughts on thatspace of specific marginalized
identity advocacy, fatigue?

(45:06):
Lemme give an analogy, which is whenevera movie comes out that courts to have
new representation of a marginalizedgroup, no one's ever happened with it
because everyone can find somethingwrong with the representation of that
new group that's being represented.
If it's a woman, she is not strongenough, or she's too strong, or she's

(45:28):
too soft, or she's not soft enough,or she stands on her own too much,
or she stands on her own too little.
And the reality of it is that there'sno one act of representation that can
achieve representation, that will makeeveryone happy because representation
is a collective outcome, right?
Ideally, we have hundreds of movieswith hundreds of women protagonists that

(45:52):
can be different in all sorts of ways.
Some can be mediocre,some can be incredible.
Now, I use this analogyto talk about allyship.
When marginalized groups engagein allyship, they can often
feel like they have to doeverything completely, perfectly.
They have to be the hero, theunicorn, the everything for
everyone, and nobody can do that.
It's just not possible.

(46:13):
Now, what we want to achieve atscale is all of the work that
needs to be done gets done.
Lots of marginalized folks contribute.
Lots of non marginalized folkscontribute, but that's not the same
as forcing any given one marginalizedperson to bear the burden of
everything at any given point in time.
Those are completely separate things.
I have my own stories about it.

(46:34):
Back in college, I remember attendinga Trans Day of Remembrance event
to mark the passing of transfolks who were murdered that year.
And I usually spoke at those events,but that year I didn't want to,
I didn't have the capacity to.
So I stood at the back of the crowd andlooked in front and there was no speaker.
No one had picked a speaker that year.

(46:54):
So it's just a bunch of cisgender people,non-transgender people standing around
awkwardly looking sad until someoneturned around and said, oh, Lily's here.
And I was like, what?
And they're like, Lily's here.
Literally the crowd parted and I waslike, I don't want to speak to this crowd.
I didn't come here to speak to this crowd.
I came here to grieve.
They pushed me up through thecrowd where I cried in front of an

(47:17):
audience and didn't want to be there.
And everyone like patted me onthe back said, Lily was so moving.
Thank you so much.
And I realized theywere consuming my grief.
Mm-hmm.
It was gross.
It was probably one of theworst moments of my life.
And it was because their idea of beinga good ally meant listening to a trans
person cry and going, oh, I'm so bad.
Such a bad person.

(47:38):
I. None of them felt comfortablehonoring trans people without a
trans person crying in front of them.
Right?
Too many of us don't push ourselvesto hold ourselves accountable
for doing the work ourselves.
We need to have someone froma community holding our hands.
We're all grown ass adults here.

(47:58):
Do I need to bring in a blackperson to say the prison industrial
complex murders black people?
No.
You can just say that, right?
It's terrible.
It's awful.
We have all this data.
We have all these stats.
I can say that I can advocate.
We don't need to beg for permissionfrom some marginalized group to
say a thing that's not only unfairto them, it's unfair to ourselves.

(48:22):
We can be so much betterthan just these passive.
I need someone from this group to be hereas a figurehead before I can feel brave.
First of all, thank youfor sharing that story.
That sounds awful.
It was awful.
It was really bad.
The other piece to this is I'm nowthinking about the over-policing that has

(48:42):
happened over language, over initiatives.
Where there is a community ofpeople who are saying exactly the
opposite of what you just said.
If you are doing this, make sure there isrepresentation of that community there.
Yeah.
After that, I don't believe in that.
I really don't like it comes fromthis mindset of thinking that only
people who have a given identity cando effective work for that identity.

(49:04):
And I feel like it'sselling everyone short.
Unless you're a woman, you can neverdo anything that benefits women.
Like, come on, come on.
We know that it's perfectly possible.
There's great data on that, onhow men can be effective alibis.
Sure.
Lots of examples of men being awful at it.
Like I have lots of examples of peoplefrom privileged troops messing up, but

(49:26):
do we really distrust each other somuch that we don't believe efficacy
is possible in any way unless youhave those identities, densities?
Mm-hmm.
Come the so on.
We need to have more faith in each other.
And going back to the example yougave Lily, it only exacerbated
more emotional labor from you.
Yeah.
If is to alleviate the emotional laborand say, let's all do this collectively.

(49:51):
The exact opposite happened.
Right.
But pushing a marginalizedperson to constantly occupy that
pedestal gives people the excuseto not do the work themselves.
'cause if you can always find acrying trans person, you never have
to interrogate your own impact.
And then you can relegate yourself tothe sidelines and just be like, I'm
listening and learning respectfully.

(50:12):
Like no.
Mm-hmm.
Listen and learn for a little bit.
And then once you've learned, onceyou've listened, start doing something.
Do something.
Get up there and do something.
Fix shit.
Right.
Like come on.
Thank you.
Oh my God.
Lily, thank you so much for this.
Can we talk about repair?
Sure.
It was really important to unpack thevarious nuances and kinds of fatigue.

(50:34):
And let me give us some structure.
So the way we work is throughwhat we call the funnel approach.
So it's the starting with the selfat an individual level to a team
or community, and then finally theorganization or society at large.
So we'd love to hear yourthoughts on what does repair

(50:54):
look like on an individual level.
What do you think of?
Well, this is where I'll maybe push backbecause I don't think it's possible to do
individual repair or for burnout becauseburnout is not an individual problem.
It's a problem that'screated by systemic factors.

(51:14):
And so if we take an individualapproach to our own burnout, I worry
that can sometimes make us feel likethe burnout was our problem, right?
It was our problem that we burned out.
Now it's our problem to fix byourselves, and that's just not accurate.
We know that systemsburn people out, right?
Collectively, broken systems burnpeople out, and so the only way to

(51:36):
heal from that, I truly believe, isthrough community, through communally
healing and finding space in eachother and supporting each other.
There's this new hyper capitalizedself-care stuff that I think is
just completely asinine, right?
Like burned out from yourworkplace by a basketball.
I'm like, Jesus, right?
It's awful.
It's everything wrong with our society.

(51:57):
But look, if you are burned out bya workplace that made you feel like
no matter what you did, you wereworthless, do the opposite of that.
Do something that makes youfeel like you have worth.
Do something that makesother people recognize you.
Maybe it's knitting, maybe it's takingup a new sport, maybe it's moving.
And again, I'm not here to just say,do these five cool things to recover

(52:19):
from burnout, but you need to recognizethat the causes and the reasons behind
your burnout are the exact things youneed to do the opposite of to heal.
And so whatever your sourceof burnout, you need to very
emphatically seek the opposite.
You need to get healing thatis deeply personal to you.
And by the way, youshouldn't do it yourself.

(52:40):
You should find community, ask for help.
Reach out to your family members,your colleagues, friends.
Don't treat healing like it'sthe necessary consequence
of you being a failure.
Treat healing as this is whatyou need to become whole again
from systems that have her you.
I love the pushback because then it'snot just about what repair looks like for

(53:02):
individuals, but why the case for repair.
Because if you keep going on empty, thenforget that there's nothing else to give.
But then physical, mental,spiritual impact is huge.
Something that I say to folks a lot,or rather something folks say to
me is, Lily, I'm doing 20 things.
I'm so burned out.
I don't have space for anything anymore.
Give me five more things todo to take care of myself.

(53:24):
And I'm like, do you hear yourself?
You're not burned out becauseyou're not buying enough bath bombs.
I'm sorry.
I'm feeling anti bath bomb today.
You're burned out 'causeyou're doing too damn much.
The only way to solve thatburnout is to do less.
The opposite of that, which by theway, no one who burns out by doing
too much likes the idea of doing less.
I'm like, case study number one.

(53:46):
I do too much.
And then I'm like, I shouldjust be more efficient.
No, the answer is I should be doing less.
No matter what I say.
I have to be doing less.
And grudgingly, I'll admit it, whenI do less, I feel better despite
the fact that I like getting busy.
So.
Look, that's what it's going to require.
You need to have the introspectionto realize why you're burned out,

(54:09):
and then you need to do the oppositeof that, even if it's deeply
uncomfortable for you, and you need toenlist those around you to help out.
And by the way, peoplewill want to help you out.
This also involves saying noand setting some boundaries that
are healthy for self to do less.
One has to say no and has toget comfortable saying no,
which in our society it's notsupported as a best practice.

(54:30):
What would you say is essential forrepair to happen within community
when there is community level harms?
I'm a firm believer in restorative andtransformative approaches to justice and
to make sure that those aren't buzzwords.
Essentially, restorative justice is anapproach to accountability that has people

(54:51):
rectify the harm done to each other.
So it has people work out what'shappened between each other if there was
interpersonal harm to make things right.
Interpersonally transformativejustice is just a fancy way of saying
acknowledge the root causes that leadto harm happening in the first place.
For example, if there's theft, the sortof restorative justice approach is to

(55:12):
have the robber apologize to the personwho was robbed and to make things right
and to make amends transformative.
Justice is saying, why the hell didtheft need to happen in the first place?
Is there rampant income inequality in thisneighborhood such that no one can survive
if they're marginalized without stealing?
Transformative justice requiresfixing the root cause, conditions that

(55:35):
underlie the harm that was committed.
I draw on those two termsbecause I think that's how we
heal in community relationally.
There's that aspect of restorative justicewhere we need to heal with each other.
We need to talk about the harmthat was committed by us or to us.
Make things right,whatever that looks like.
But transformatively, we need torecognize if there are patterns of harm.

(55:59):
That doesn't just mean wehave to apologize every week.
That means there's somethingwrong with our community.
There's something that couldbe better about our community.
We could do better, wecould change something.
We need to fundamentally rethink someaspect of how we connect and engage with
each other, and that's where healingcomes from, not just in the moment when

(56:19):
harm is done, but intervening to changethe underlying factors that lead to harm
happening over and over and over again.
What do organizations need tokeep in mind and society is large.
Keep in mind when it comesto repair, organizations are
often the source of most harm.
So they need to keep in mind that there'sno such thing as water under the bridge.

(56:44):
If you've committed harm as a workplace,as a leader, which by the way, you
probably have, I'm not saying thatjust because I assume you're a bad
leader, but because everyone commitsharm, and there are very few guides on
how to be a leader in society withoutacting in ways that harm people.
So I guarantee everyone who's ever been ina leadership position, me included, have
inflicted harm unintentionally on someone.

(57:07):
You need to recognize that there's nosuch thing as water under the bridge.
If there is not harm that you have maderights, then it doesn't really matter
how long ago that was, you need tomake it right at the very least, right?
Apply those same two approachesof restorative justice and
transformative justice relationally.
You need to make the repair forevery act of harm you do, and that

(57:30):
doesn't always end in forgiveness.
It ends in trying to make things rightand giving it your best shot to understand
how the harm happened, apologize for theimpact it caused, and commit to doing
better in the future, and then ideallyactually doing better in the future.
But then looking at transformationaljustice, you need to recognize that
if there are patterns in the harmyou're committing and there are root

(57:52):
causes, then it's your job to fix that.
This is the responsibilityof organizations.
If there is harm that is routinelyhappening in their workplaces,
then they have to fix it.
And this gets right back toD-E-I-D-E-I is problem solving.
If you recognize there's a problem,you have to fix the problem.
You can't have healing without it.

(58:12):
You can't have repair without it.
If the fire hydrant across thestreet exploded and the street's
flooding, I can mop up the floodingthat makes things right for a second.
But the fire hydrantstill leaking everywhere.
You can't have true repair untilyou fix the source of the problem.
That's the case with all DEI challengesthat the case with all organizational

(58:34):
challenges where harm is committed.
Any advice on setting up a DEIgroup in a small organization
and protecting from burnout?
That would be helpful.
First, you really need to understandwhat your group is trying to
achieve based on your capacity.
If you wanna set up a small DEI groupfor venting only, I think you'll be
able to prevent from burnout becausethe scope of the group is small.

(58:57):
You're just there to connect, you'rejust there to talk to each other.
You're just there toshare your experiences.
Where the challenges happen is whenpeople bite off more than they can
chew, where you say, I'm gonna starta small DEI group and we're gonna try
to end white supremacy at our org.
No you won't.
Please don't do that.
I'm not saying it's not a good goal,but like that is the reddest of

(59:17):
red flags when it comes to burnout.
You cannot meaningfullyachieve a goal that's that big.
No matter how much passion you havewithout real funding, real authority, real
power, that's not your problem to fix.
So be real with yourself and honestwith yourself about both what you
can do and what you have capacityto do and organize around that.
Maybe the most you can do is to havea book club once every month, and then

(59:41):
after the first two months, you realizeyou don't even have capacity for that.
So you do a book club once every quarter.
That's great.
That's wonderful.
Sustainable work is infinitely betterthan a burst in productivity that
leads to everyone being traumatizedand burned out in every scenario.
So that's where the boundariesneed to come in from the very
beginning and create your groupwith the intention to avoid burnout.

(01:00:04):
Don't try to.
Punt that problem until you're alreadyhalf burned out, then it's too late.
I'd also add not to be too competitivewith what other groups are doing.
'cause sometimes that lead totaking on something more that
you might just not have capacity.
Yeah.
But why not work with them?
Also?
This is the thing, so every DEIvolunteer group seems to think
that they can solve everything.
And so when there's two ofthem, for some reason they think

(01:00:26):
they're competing very weird.
I've never understood it.
No.
DEI group can achieveeverything on its own.
So if you're both set on doing somethingdifferent or doing a lot, then work
together to say, Hey, the people in thisgroup seem really excited about thing X.
The people in this group seemreally excited about thing Y.
How can we work together in a waythat allows us both to succeed?

(01:00:46):
Especially if we're engaging in DEIwork or any organizing or community
building, like there is literallynothing we lose and everything
to gain by working together.
The relationships with, with HR and headsof DEI, I've been in many conversations
around, do they need to be separate?
Do they need Oh yeah, sure.
Together, sure.
Does one need to be under the other?
And then the power to that and levelsof power and agency that it get

(01:01:10):
exuded and that also then becomeswithin the power space of who gets to
decide what are the standardizationsof DEI within an organization.
These groups work better togetherrather than against each other.
And if we get down to the question ofDEI that HR does, is that worth doing?
Then I will go back tosaying, does it work?

(01:01:32):
Yeah.
Here's the thing, people overfocuson, like whether HR should report
to D-E-I-D-E, I report to hr. Bothof them sit in the same department.
Both of them are separate.
Who should report to the CEO?
Not that I don't care.
But that if the work is working,then that's great that I don't care.
You could have DEI reporting toengineering if it's working and Sure.

(01:01:56):
Working is a charged phrase.
It's very hard to know if things work, butwe need to be focusing on the outcomes of
the initiatives we're deploying and sure.
Let's say your DEI work reports tohr, and HR in this company is really
committed to using this cookie cutterapproach that has every department

(01:02:16):
take the same training and it doesn'twork well, then it doesn't work, right?
Like then you gotta bedoing something different.
Then you have to say, this cookiecutter approach is not working.
So regardless of who reports to whoor who's taking on the work, we have
to be doing something different.
So focusing less on the org chart,right, and focusing more on the outcomes

(01:02:36):
is what allows us to solve thesebig problems without real answers.
Because if people ask me like, shouldDEI report to HR or vice versa,
I don't have an answer for that.
It almost doesn't matter.
What matters is what you're ableto do to ensure your efforts work.
Thank you for the work you do and forsharing this incredible book and this
wisdom and knowledge with us today.

(01:02:57):
Thank you for having me.
We continue the exploration of workplaceculture with our next episode, a
global lens to equity and inclusion.
Thank you for listening to Far Site Chats.
I hope that this episode is the start tofuture conversations you have with your
colleagues, friends, and communities.

(01:03:18):
Subscribe now to FAR Site chatswherever you get your podcasts.
And don't forget to follow us onInstagram, at Facebook at Go Far
site LinkedIn at the Far Site Agency.
And check out our website gofar site.com to know more about
who we are and what we do.
Thank you for answering the call.
To do more, do better and do different