August 27, 2024 • 16 mins
In this episode of The Equity Hour, Dr. Tami Dean the critical conversation about the difference between performative and practical equity in leadership. Are you truly ready to lead equity work in your organization, or are you merely ticking boxes? Dr. Dean explores essential considerations, from understanding the "why" behind your equity initiatives to aligning policies, structures, and financial resources for genuine impact. Whether you're a leader or a team member, this episode will guide you in assessing readiness, planning strategically, and fostering a culture that supports meaningful equity work. Tune in for actionable insights on creating an equitable and inclusive environment that goes beyond surface-level commitments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tami (00:00):
Hello.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the equity hour with
me.
Your host, Dr.
Tami Dean.
I am so excited to kick off ourfirst season two episode.
With just me this time, but Ihave some great gas lined up for
you coming up here in seasontwo.
(00:21):
I wanted to start off this fallwith talking about.
Performative.
Versus practical.
Equity application from aleader.
That ship perspectiveconsidering.
When is your organization ready?
Or when is your organization notready for the equity work that
(00:43):
you're trying to do?
This is a very importantquestion.
Because I believe.
That, the reason that we get alot of performative equity.
Implementation is because thepre-work wasn't done within the
(01:04):
organization to align systemstructures, values monies to get
the desired outcome.
Or the supposed of desiredoutcome.
Because you will find typicallyin an organization, if there is
a strong enough desire forresults.
(01:25):
There are policies, procedures.
And financial backing for thatimplementation.
And so I want to go through afew considerations.
As you're thinking about.
Your organization, yourbusiness, your school, your
(01:47):
district.
Any of those places.
And especially if you are aleader, And you are looking to
lead this work.
Or help find someone to leadthis work.
In collaboration with you.
If you are someone who is not ina leadership position, these
(02:09):
questions will help you thinkthrough.
What do you notice and what isin place?
So perhaps it opens up a spacefor you to ask the questions.
To maybe get to a more practicalimplementation.
In your organizational space.
So one of the most essentialparts to planning.
(02:32):
And looking at adjusting oursystems and structures for
equity.
Is taking the time.
To plan.
And I say that becauseoftentimes they'll be like, oh,
we really don't have an equitystatement.
We're going to you, like, we sawthis after George Floyd
actually, right?
Like this huge influx of.
We're going to make an equitystatement we see on black lives
(02:54):
matter, like all of this.
For lack of a better word.
Propaganda came out.
With, we're going to jump onthis quote unquote bandwagon.
Of equity.
And what that.
Didn't have while well intendedin a lot of those spaces, it
didn't have the time to plan andto ask ourselves the why.
(03:17):
The why who is so important.
Why is your organization lookingto engage in this equity work?
Why is this a key initiative?
Why.
Our policies and practicesneeding to be reviewed and
adjusted.
(03:37):
If we don't understand the why.
Then it's going to be reallydifficult.
To do the, how we're going to doit.
Because a lot of times, thepeople that you're trying to
bring on board are going to wantto know the why, because if you
don't have the why it's usuallydisjointed and it doesn't make
sense, or you're asking peopleto do this work and you're not
(03:59):
compensating them for this work.
Or you're asking people to dothe work who are not in
positions that are able toexecute or positions of power or
executive leadership in theorganization.
Right.
So what the why tells us.
Is.
(04:19):
What is our motivation?
Very important question.
If your motivation is becauseeverybody else is doing it,
that's probably not going tostick.
It is going to becomeperformative.
Sorry to be that blunt, but why,why.
What is your motivation?
Economics.
(04:40):
Why are we doing this?
How are we going to financially?
Support the work.
The time that goes into the workand the people.
Who are doing the work?
So I'm again, I'm going to say,if you are not willing to
invest.
Financial resources in yourequity.
(05:03):
Work.
Then you are being alreadyinequitable because you are
asking for this emotional labor.
Of people.
Versus compensating them forthis type of skillset and work.
What is the timeline?
(05:23):
So if I'm thinking aboutplanning, What is our motivation
and what is our timeline?
What is it we're looking toaccomplish?
Why are we looking to accomplishit?
When are we going toaccomplishment?
Accomplish it.
Right.
And I'll get into metrics in asecond.
And then willingness.
(05:44):
Are those in this space willing?
To put in the time and effort todo the work.
Is the executive leadership orleadership willing.
To lead the work to provide thetime and space to do the work,
to provide the support, to dothe work.
What is the willingness.
If there is not willingness, ifyou don't have a timeline, if
(06:06):
you don't know how you're goingto financially support it.
If we don't understand ourmotivation.
Your organization isn't ready.
Okay.
So we want to look at all ofthose things and understand the
why.
And then as we're thinking aboutthose things, right, I need to
think about.
How are we evaluating what we'resaying here?
(06:30):
Right.
So what does this evaluationmatrix?
How do we quantify this data?
How does this build into oursystem?
So for example, If we say thatwe value.
That you know, everyone in ourorganization, and I'm just
making this up off the top of myhead.
You know, is able to provide Anequitable and engaging.
(06:53):
Space for our clients.
What does that mean?
Or if you want them to learnabout certain components of
equity, as it relates to yourmotivation, how are you building
that into expectations?
And what I'm getting at here.
Is.
(07:13):
You need to plan.
And when by planning, you'rethinking about how does this
become a part of our system andexpectation?
And not planning.
Like we took a week to plan likethree to six months to plan.
And we're in this work is notpassive.
It isn't an opt in or opt out.
That's where the willingnessquestion came in because you
can't have people opting out.
(07:35):
Building an equitableenvironment.
If you're saying this is part ofour system and structure and
what we value, then how are youbuilding that into evaluation?
How are you building that intofeedback?
How are you building that intoprofessional development
opportunities?
How are you building that in toyour company or system or
structure or school as a whole.
And when we're thinking aboutit, we need to, then your
leadership needs to sell thevision.
(07:57):
What is our vision?
So that everyone understands thewhy.
So it makes sense.
Because if you don't have avision, you don't have a why you
don't have a plan.
Then people are going to make upwhat those are in their mind,
and it may or may not fit theoutcomes that you're looking to
have.
So there might be amisalignment.
And then that's when things gooff the rails and then it
(08:19):
becomes performative.
Okay.
So I know this.
Episodes feels very negative andI'm not intending it to be.
I'm just trying to be veryrealistic.
About what it is you need to do.
When you're looking to establishthese systems, you need to be
thoughtful and intentional.
And you need to have the rightpeople and partners in place.
(08:42):
Okay.
I love volunteers and peoplethat are passionate about this
work in organizations and yousee it all the time.
These people also get burnt out.
And we shouldn't be expectingthem to take on all the
leadership around this workwithout compensation.
So again, What do we want?
What do we want it to look like?
And we're going to make a planand we're going to scope out
that plan.
(09:02):
And build an inclusiveenvironment that supports all of
those things.
Okay.
So helpful way.
To do this is to also getfeedback and get information.
Right.
What are the skillsets?
Of our team around this, right.
What ability do they have?
What assets are they bringing tothe table?
What are their hopes, fears,ideas related to this?
(09:25):
So we don't want to be doingthis in isolation.
So this is where the timing andthe planning takes place.
So you can gather thisinformation, use these voices as
a part of the process to beplanning.
Okay.
So, what is it?
We want to be learning.
We need to identify what is ourproblem?
What is our challenge?
Why we're addressing it, howwe're going to do that.
(09:48):
We need to.
Clearly make it fit within ourculture needs to be provided in
multiple ways to address andmeet the needs of multiple
people.
And we need to have a check-inlike, how is this going?
Are we meeting thoseexpectations?
If we're saying this is ouroutcome.
Are we meeting what we say we'regoing to be doing.
And if your, if you're aprincipal and your teachers are
(10:11):
saying, we're not, if you're anassistant superintendent and
they're saying, we're not, ifyour community is saying, we're
not, if you're in a businessorganization and your employees
are saying, you're not, you needto listen.
And figure out the why, and thengo back to the planning.
Okay.
So we really need to be thinkingabout what is the results and
(10:31):
when things again, I'm going tosay it again, are important
enough.
They are written into policies.
So checking the policy andhaving a DEI or equity strategic
plan.
So you need to be looking verycomprehensively at all of these
components when you're planningand asking yourself is my
organization.
Ready.
And when you do.
(10:52):
I finished planning.
And when you're working on thisteam, you want to have a diverse
team.
You need a diverse team.
I hope it goes without saying,but.
This.
weight Of equity work is notmeant for persons from
marginalized.
Communities to bear the burden.
(11:14):
I'm going to say that again,that this is not from people
from marginalized.
Communities within yourorganization to bear the burden
of this work.
They may or may not want to,they may or may not have the
expertise to lead the work.
Do they have personalexperiences?
Yes.
Do they want to always sharethem?
No.
(11:35):
Do they want to always take theshame and the guilt.
From majority.
Populations?
No.
So we need a diverse team.
All right.
So.
We need to understand.
The cultural climate of ourorganization and do an
assessment.
You probably want to do anequity audit.
Not from someone who worksthere.
(11:56):
So you get an outsideperspective We are looking to be
transformational and by beingtransformational, we are being
intentional in the scope of ourplanning, the scope of our work.
Our policies, procedures,financials, and outcomes.
So we want to think.
Through.
What is it we want in thefuture.
Where is it?
(12:17):
We want to go.
Okay.
And how are we going to getthere?
So you can think of it likebackwards design or backwards
planning.
With the knowledge.
Right.
That.
Let's say we plan a 10, 15, 20,year plan.
For where we want to end up.
(12:37):
We also need to recognize thatthere might be new information
that comes along the way.
So, how are we going to thinkabout.
How we may or may notincorporate.
Trends.
Versus new.
Strategic information.
Because we've seen a few trendspop in and out around equity.
(12:58):
Especially over.
You know, the last 10 years.
So we're not.
Doing this work to be.
Popular.
Or to get on the bandwagon or.
Any number of those phrases, weare doing this work because it
is important.
It is intentional.
And we're looking to provide anequitable.
Learning working.
(13:19):
Community.
For those within ourorganization or our community or
our school, we're looking todisrupt.
Systems and structures that havehistorically been in, place.
To provide power and privilegeto certain groups over others.
And in order to do that, I needto know.
am am I ready?
What is the why.
(13:40):
How are we going to do it?
And who are we going to makesure is on board to make sure it
happens and is in place.
So.
I want to end there todaybecause I feel like that is a
lot to be thinking about.
With regards to your work as aleader in what you're trying to
do.
If you are looking for supportwith.
(14:02):
How to get started.
And develop a plan.
Please reach out to me.
Atdrtamidean@dragonflyrising.org.
You can hit me up on Instagramand send me a DM and I would be
happy to set up a consultationwith you.
Or your team to discuss whatyour next steps might be.
(14:23):
So I want to thank you all fortaking the time to listen into
this episode today.
I am super excited about theintentionality around thinking.
When and how do we do and engagewith this equity work within our
organizations and so superexcited about our upcoming
episodes.
(14:43):
Make sure.
You like, and subscribe on yourfavorite podcast providers.
So you don't miss an episode andplease share this within your
network.
And until next time, make sureyou use your voice.
Talk to you soon.
Hello.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the equity hour with
me.
Your host, Dr.
Tami Dean.
I am so excited to kick off ourfirst season two episode.
With just me this time, but Ihave some great gas lined up for
you coming up here in seasontwo.
(00:21):
I wanted to start off this fallwith talking about.
Performative.
Versus practical.
Equity application from aleader.
That ship perspectiveconsidering.
When is your organization ready?
Or when is your organization notready for the equity work that
(00:43):
you're trying to do?
This is a very importantquestion.
Because I believe.
That, the reason that we get alot of performative equity.
Implementation is because thepre-work wasn't done within the
(01:04):
organization to align systemstructures, values monies to get
the desired outcome.
Or the supposed of desiredoutcome.
Because you will find typicallyin an organization, if there is
a strong enough desire forresults.
(01:25):
There are policies, procedures.
And financial backing for thatimplementation.
And so I want to go through afew considerations.
As you're thinking about.
Your organization, yourbusiness, your school, your
(01:47):
district.
Any of those places.
And especially if you are aleader, And you are looking to
lead this work.
Or help find someone to leadthis work.
In collaboration with you.
If you are someone who is not ina leadership position, these
(02:09):
questions will help you thinkthrough.
What do you notice and what isin place?
So perhaps it opens up a spacefor you to ask the questions.
To maybe get to a more practicalimplementation.
In your organizational space.
So one of the most essentialparts to planning.
(02:32):
And looking at adjusting oursystems and structures for
equity.
Is taking the time.
To plan.
And I say that becauseoftentimes they'll be like, oh,
we really don't have an equitystatement.
We're going to you, like, we sawthis after George Floyd
actually, right?
Like this huge influx of.
We're going to make an equitystatement we see on black lives
(02:54):
matter, like all of this.
For lack of a better word.
Propaganda came out.
With, we're going to jump onthis quote unquote bandwagon.
Of equity.
And what that.
Didn't have while well intendedin a lot of those spaces, it
didn't have the time to plan andto ask ourselves the why.
(03:17):
The why who is so important.
Why is your organization lookingto engage in this equity work?
Why is this a key initiative?
Why.
Our policies and practicesneeding to be reviewed and
adjusted.
(03:37):
If we don't understand the why.
Then it's going to be reallydifficult.
To do the, how we're going to doit.
Because a lot of times, thepeople that you're trying to
bring on board are going to wantto know the why, because if you
don't have the why it's usuallydisjointed and it doesn't make
sense, or you're asking peopleto do this work and you're not
(03:59):
compensating them for this work.
Or you're asking people to dothe work who are not in
positions that are able toexecute or positions of power or
executive leadership in theorganization.
Right.
So what the why tells us.
Is.
(04:19):
What is our motivation?
Very important question.
If your motivation is becauseeverybody else is doing it,
that's probably not going tostick.
It is going to becomeperformative.
Sorry to be that blunt, but why,why.
What is your motivation?
Economics.
(04:40):
Why are we doing this?
How are we going to financially?
Support the work.
The time that goes into the workand the people.
Who are doing the work?
So I'm again, I'm going to say,if you are not willing to
invest.
Financial resources in yourequity.
(05:03):
Work.
Then you are being alreadyinequitable because you are
asking for this emotional labor.
Of people.
Versus compensating them forthis type of skillset and work.
What is the timeline?
(05:23):
So if I'm thinking aboutplanning, What is our motivation
and what is our timeline?
What is it we're looking toaccomplish?
Why are we looking to accomplishit?
When are we going toaccomplishment?
Accomplish it.
Right.
And I'll get into metrics in asecond.
And then willingness.
(05:44):
Are those in this space willing?
To put in the time and effort todo the work.
Is the executive leadership orleadership willing.
To lead the work to provide thetime and space to do the work,
to provide the support, to dothe work.
What is the willingness.
If there is not willingness, ifyou don't have a timeline, if
(06:06):
you don't know how you're goingto financially support it.
If we don't understand ourmotivation.
Your organization isn't ready.
Okay.
So we want to look at all ofthose things and understand the
why.
And then as we're thinking aboutthose things, right, I need to
think about.
How are we evaluating what we'resaying here?
(06:30):
Right.
So what does this evaluationmatrix?
How do we quantify this data?
How does this build into oursystem?
So for example, If we say thatwe value.
That you know, everyone in ourorganization, and I'm just
making this up off the top of myhead.
You know, is able to provide Anequitable and engaging.
(06:53):
Space for our clients.
What does that mean?
Or if you want them to learnabout certain components of
equity, as it relates to yourmotivation, how are you building
that into expectations?
And what I'm getting at here.
Is.
(07:13):
You need to plan.
And when by planning, you'rethinking about how does this
become a part of our system andexpectation?
And not planning.
Like we took a week to plan likethree to six months to plan.
And we're in this work is notpassive.
It isn't an opt in or opt out.
That's where the willingnessquestion came in because you
can't have people opting out.
(07:35):
Building an equitableenvironment.
If you're saying this is part ofour system and structure and
what we value, then how are youbuilding that into evaluation?
How are you building that intofeedback?
How are you building that intoprofessional development
opportunities?
How are you building that in toyour company or system or
structure or school as a whole.
And when we're thinking aboutit, we need to, then your
leadership needs to sell thevision.
(07:57):
What is our vision?
So that everyone understands thewhy.
So it makes sense.
Because if you don't have avision, you don't have a why you
don't have a plan.
Then people are going to make upwhat those are in their mind,
and it may or may not fit theoutcomes that you're looking to
have.
So there might be amisalignment.
And then that's when things gooff the rails and then it
(08:19):
becomes performative.
Okay.
So I know this.
Episodes feels very negative andI'm not intending it to be.
I'm just trying to be veryrealistic.
About what it is you need to do.
When you're looking to establishthese systems, you need to be
thoughtful and intentional.
And you need to have the rightpeople and partners in place.
(08:42):
Okay.
I love volunteers and peoplethat are passionate about this
work in organizations and yousee it all the time.
These people also get burnt out.
And we shouldn't be expectingthem to take on all the
leadership around this workwithout compensation.
So again, What do we want?
What do we want it to look like?
And we're going to make a planand we're going to scope out
that plan.
(09:02):
And build an inclusiveenvironment that supports all of
those things.
Okay.
So helpful way.
To do this is to also getfeedback and get information.
Right.
What are the skillsets?
Of our team around this, right.
What ability do they have?
What assets are they bringing tothe table?
What are their hopes, fears,ideas related to this?
(09:25):
So we don't want to be doingthis in isolation.
So this is where the timing andthe planning takes place.
So you can gather thisinformation, use these voices as
a part of the process to beplanning.
Okay.
So, what is it?
We want to be learning.
We need to identify what is ourproblem?
What is our challenge?
Why we're addressing it, howwe're going to do that.
(09:48):
We need to.
Clearly make it fit within ourculture needs to be provided in
multiple ways to address andmeet the needs of multiple
people.
And we need to have a check-inlike, how is this going?
Are we meeting thoseexpectations?
If we're saying this is ouroutcome.
Are we meeting what we say we'regoing to be doing.
And if your, if you're aprincipal and your teachers are
(10:11):
saying, we're not, if you're anassistant superintendent and
they're saying, we're not, ifyour community is saying, we're
not, if you're in a businessorganization and your employees
are saying, you're not, you needto listen.
And figure out the why, and thengo back to the planning.
Okay.
So we really need to be thinkingabout what is the results and
(10:31):
when things again, I'm going tosay it again, are important
enough.
They are written into policies.
So checking the policy andhaving a DEI or equity strategic
plan.
So you need to be looking verycomprehensively at all of these
components when you're planningand asking yourself is my
organization.
Ready.
And when you do.
(10:52):
I finished planning.
And when you're working on thisteam, you want to have a diverse
team.
You need a diverse team.
I hope it goes without saying,but.
This.
weight Of equity work is notmeant for persons from
marginalized.
Communities to bear the burden.
(11:14):
I'm going to say that again,that this is not from people
from marginalized.
Communities within yourorganization to bear the burden
of this work.
They may or may not want to,they may or may not have the
expertise to lead the work.
Do they have personalexperiences?
Yes.
Do they want to always sharethem?
No.
(11:35):
Do they want to always take theshame and the guilt.
From majority.
Populations?
No.
So we need a diverse team.
All right.
So.
We need to understand.
The cultural climate of ourorganization and do an
assessment.
You probably want to do anequity audit.
Not from someone who worksthere.
(11:56):
So you get an outsideperspective We are looking to be
transformational and by beingtransformational, we are being
intentional in the scope of ourplanning, the scope of our work.
Our policies, procedures,financials, and outcomes.
So we want to think.
Through.
What is it we want in thefuture.
Where is it?
(12:17):
We want to go.
Okay.
And how are we going to getthere?
So you can think of it likebackwards design or backwards
planning.
With the knowledge.
Right.
That.
Let's say we plan a 10, 15, 20,year plan.
For where we want to end up.
(12:37):
We also need to recognize thatthere might be new information
that comes along the way.
So, how are we going to thinkabout.
How we may or may notincorporate.
Trends.
Versus new.
Strategic information.
Because we've seen a few trendspop in and out around equity.
(12:58):
Especially over.
You know, the last 10 years.
So we're not.
Doing this work to be.
Popular.
Or to get on the bandwagon or.
Any number of those phrases, weare doing this work because it
is important.
It is intentional.
And we're looking to provide anequitable.
Learning working.
(13:19):
Community.
For those within ourorganization or our community or
our school, we're looking todisrupt.
Systems and structures that havehistorically been in, place.
To provide power and privilegeto certain groups over others.
And in order to do that, I needto know.
am am I ready?
What is the why.
(13:40):
How are we going to do it?
And who are we going to makesure is on board to make sure it
happens and is in place.
So.
I want to end there todaybecause I feel like that is a
lot to be thinking about.
With regards to your work as aleader in what you're trying to
do.
If you are looking for supportwith.
(14:02):
How to get started.
And develop a plan.
Please reach out to me.
Atdrtamidean@dragonflyrising.org.
You can hit me up on Instagramand send me a DM and I would be
happy to set up a consultationwith you.
Or your team to discuss whatyour next steps might be.
(14:23):
So I want to thank you all fortaking the time to listen into
this episode today.
I am super excited about theintentionality around thinking.
When and how do we do and engagewith this equity work within our
organizations and so superexcited about our upcoming
episodes.
(14:43):
Make sure.
You like, and subscribe on yourfavorite podcast providers.
So you don't miss an episode andplease share this within your
network.
And until next time, make sureyou use your voice.
Talk to you soon.
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