Speaker 1: 0:02

This is Joanna Shuffner-Scott. You are listening to the Race in the Workplace podcast, a show for organizational leaders that explores how race, racism and racial equity play out in workplaces and workspaces. I am an organizational development consultant and founder of the Stamey Street Consulting Group. I help nonprofits, philanthropies and private businesses create equitable organizations that work for everyone. My hope for this podcast is that it helps you identify practical, sustainable actions to shift your organization from being colorblind to equity-centered. Hi everybody, it's Joanna Shuffler-Scott here, and I am excited to be back on the mic with my colleague, anthony Armstrong from Make Communities. And we are here with another episode of the series that we've been working on called let's Get Real Racial Equity for Adaptive Leaders, that we've been working on called let's Get Real Racial Equity for Adaptive Leaders. We're back and excited to continue the conversation that we have been having. So, hi, anthony.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Hey Joanna, Thanks for having me back again.

Speaker 1: 1:13

So today's conversation picks up on a conversation that we had in our last episode of Real, where we were talking about the conditions needed for equity work to take traction. That was such a great conversation, and so this conversation picks back up on that, where we explore at a deeper level what leaders can expect along the way.

Speaker 2: 1:38

When we think about the preparation piece that we spoke about last time, it's kind of lining up the ducks in a row, but even so, those ducks are not going to stay in that row, and so when you ultimately launch your initiative, or when you roll this out, understanding what kinds of obstacles, what kinds of challenges, but also what kinds of successes you'll have along the way, will help you put this in a context where I think you'll be able to understand that this isn't just because I've done something wrong or this is because things are going sideways. There's a natural process here, and what we want to talk about are those patterns that we see in organizations when equity initiatives really start to take root.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Yeah, and the other piece I would add would be when work moves from one place and journey to the other. So, as it matures, some of the things that we're going to talk about today are applicable there too. So as your work matures, as you learn more, you'll also see some of the shifts that we're going to talk about today happen.

Speaker 2: 2:39

The first thing about undertaking an equity initiative that's meaningful is that you need to expect real change. And this doesn't sound like something we should have to say, but over the course of the past few years, we certainly saw a lot of organizations make a big statement, have a big splash, say that they were equitable, they were committed to equity, and then nothing changed within those organizations. So if you're going to say that your organization committed to equity and then nothing changed within those organizations, so if you're going to say that your organization cares about equity, if you're going to say that you're starting an initiative, you need to expect real change and you need to also be aware that people will expect that change of you. Just saying the words doesn't get us there.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Get us there, yeah, and I think we saw a lot of that around the events that happened in 2020, where people were very quick to declare themselves to be anti-racist, without a full understanding and recognition of what that means and how your work should change.

Speaker 1: 3:38

I would certainly say that if a leader or an organization has made a commitment to equity, your work should look different. It should look different externally to your partners and other people that you work with and you share space with, and it should also look different to your staff. It should feel different and if it doesn't like that's a moment to check in, to see is what you're doing deep enough or are you still at the surface? That matters to whether it's sustainable or not. That's why a lot of those efforts that were launched in the summer of 2020 and then 2021, I think, didn't hold, and I actually think that's why some of the retrenchment that has happened over the past couple of years has happened is because people either didn't know what to expect or were only doing like surface level things, and so there wasn't the transformation that maybe people were expecting. I mean, I know that there's a lot to that that we can unpack at another time, but I think that expectation of it being real should be able to be felt.

Speaker 2: 4:47

One of the things that we saw in our work and definitely heard about anecdotally and saw as a pattern, was that often in this time period when organizations were hiring a DEI lead or an equity lead for the first time, these new positions inherited a lot of responsibility but oftentimes not a lot of power. And one of the frustrations that we heard from folks was yes, I'm in this position, but there's an assumption that I'm doing this on my own and there's not the understanding that other people need to change the way that they work also. So if you're driving this as the CEO or the executive director or the president of an organization, that's one thing to anticipate real change and to hold yourself accountable to real change. Equity role folks who are in that CEO role or the executive director role also have to understand that they're going to be challenged. They need to understand that they're going to have to change the way that they operate and that they're going to have to set that expectation for the rest of the staff as well.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Folks who were brought in to organizations during that time period.

Speaker 1: 6:04

I agree A lot of those folks had huge expectations put on them and not nearly enough resources to do what they were being charged with doing and not enough support around what it means to bring about real change, that transformative change that we talk about.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Like not enough support around that, because there are elements around that, some of those we'll talk about today in this episode, that are really difficult and, if aren't rooted in a very clear why we're doing this, make achieving those outcomes really difficult. Sometimes there is a probably unrealistic expectation about the amount of change that's needed in an organization who's committed to this work and at the levels within the organization. So in our work we're, you know, we're thinking everything from how you spend your money to the you know, public messaging and I think sometimes leaders aren't fully aware that that cross-cutting really does mean cross-cutting. That isn't always clear, it hasn't always been communicated clearly, which is why I wanted to do this with you was because I felt like people really need to know like when we say cross-cutting, that's what we really mean. It's not just a standalone, it's not just a silo you build alongside your work. It really is the way that you do your work, the how of it.

Speaker 2: 7:33

The kinds of resistance that you will face in launching an equity initiative are things that we wanted to talk about. One of those is inertia, the notion that, well, we've been doing things this way and it's working for me. I'm hitting my numbers or whatever it is. Why should I have to change? Also, this is an issue for somebody else to solve, or it's a priority for somebody else, which doesn't necessarily mean that people don't care about this, that they don't value this, but it's easy to think that the way that we've been doing things is good enough. That inertia is tough to break sometimes.

Speaker 1: 8:06

I feel myself clowning on my soapbox. So I feel kind of strongly about what you just said. It's not a reaction to you, but conceptually because whether people want to accept it as the truth or not, like we live in a racist context. We just do, and I know for some people they can't accept that. But that's the reality of I'll speak for myself. That's the reality of my lived experience. Organizations exist in that same context.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I say this in a lot of places in my work that organizations aren't race neutral. They aren't. Our society is not race neutral. The only way to do work equitably is to be intentional about how you honestly real talk or you're not. That piece, the decision around that, the willingness to tackle that, the courage it takes, that to me is very clear. Either you are, you have it, you're willing, you're brave, or you're not and you can be upset if people don't want to be a part of something where they don't feel like it's equitable for them. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot I'm getting off my soapbox. There's a lot there I'm getting off. I'm getting off my soapbox. I don't think that that's a soapbox moment.

Speaker 2: 9:35

I think that's something that people in leadership need to be aware of. Right, you need to be able to recognize that dominant culture. You need to be able to recognize that dominant culture. You need to understand the way that characteristics that are assumed to be are actually reinforcing systems of disparity, whether that's perfectionism or whether that's there's only one right way to do things. So if we don't challenge that norm, we will continue to produce those same disparities. It's important to ask why we do things the way we've been doing them. Is it because it's the most effective to get us towards our goal, or is it because it's just the way we've always done them? Sees really being able to have a hard, honest look at the way we do things and why we do things is important to make people see a different way and to shift the course of the organization and to move us closer to our equitable outcomes.

Speaker 1: 10:47

There are tools available that can help folks unpack that, even the awareness that maybe this is a practice that can be reviewed or maybe this is something we want to think about in terms of the way we've always worked. People get really attached to those kinds of things and it can be quite stifling to folks who are calling important questions about the how right. Just because you've always done something a certain way doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement. But the key to being open to improvement is also directly connected to what kind of culture you want to build in your organization. Do we have a learning culture? Do we have a culture in which we can look at our work and say, hey, we can do this better and it's not personal? Sometimes, when you get into that conversation around we've always done things a certain way it becomes very personal, to whomever it is. That's a growth mindset, and being open to new ways of doing things is another thing that feels organic, but it really isn't.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Yeah, it is all part of this resistance to change, and we have also discussed previously the fear of change generally and what people actually fear when they fear change. Right, usually that's a fear of loss of some kind, whether it's status, or whether it's reputation or identity or routine. There are many ways that general fear of change gets in the way, and the underlying causes of that aren't often named. That can translate into different types of excuses that come up for why this new way won't work or why the old way is the best way or the only way. It can lead us into all kinds of distractions and traps, whether that's whataboutism, you know, okay, well, this, but also this, and we need to do that. We can't just do this, and these are ways to really gum up the works. It's ways that we are seeing people resist change because of the underlying fear of't even recognize that in themselves, that that is beneath that resistance, or that that is driving their desire to keep things as they are.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Yeah, we could go deeper there I agree with you, and it took me a really long time to see this. This was one of those things that, especially earlier in my consulting practice, I would see things playing out in organizations or among clients and not always really see clearly what the root was. It took me a long time to name it, to be able to articulate clearly what it was when I was seeing resistance. I think there's a temptation to go to the this person's just being obstructionist, or this person just doesn't like change, or this person is one of the Muppets that's sitting up in the thing.

Speaker 2: 13:59

The curmudgeon.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Yes, or this person's racist, even right. There's another moment, like what you just said, of what's really underneath and what's driving that. That's underneath the resistance, and I think we experience this in very racialized ways. I'll speak for myself as a Black woman. Sometimes I've experienced resistance that is gender-based. Sometimes it's gender and race. So it's that I'm experiencing that at the intersection that I sit. Sometimes it's holding on to old ways. This is one of those things that leaders may experience differently based on their identity. Do you have thoughts about that?

Speaker 2: 14:40

My thought is that you're right. Sometimes the resistance is rooted in acknowledged white supremacy framework. Sometimes people believe in that racial hierarchy. Sometimes that will absolutely be present in your organization, and we're living in an age where sometimes people are even saying that out loud, right, or at least in the break room, or muttering it to folks who they think might be sympathetic to that way of thinking. But going back to this notion that even for people who don't have that belief, who would never think of themselves as racist or maybe even think of themselves as anti-racist, they may not be aware of the ways in which the racialization process that we all go through is putting up barriers internally to their receptivity of color, that they need to fix this in white folks because I don't think that that is the job of people of color and often in dei roles, I would say the majority of people in those roles are folks of color and if they're left out there on their own to solve this, then what kind of a position are we putting them in there's?

Speaker 2: 15:52

not an easy answer for this, but if you're leading an initiative or you're supporting an initiative, you at least have to have an awareness of this, because without that awareness and without being able to name this, as you said, joanna, without being able to name this, things don't really make sense. Right? The resistance can't be rationalized. Joanna, you and I often talk about productive pairing. We talk about who carries what messages, whose voice is going to carry in a certain space, in a certain room, and we also talk about the emotional tax of doing this work. And when is it time for me to step up, as someone who's white identified, to address these barriers in a way that doesn't put that back on you?

Speaker 1: 16:36

Yeah, I know I hear you on that and I know we talked about that in one of our conversations when we talked about leadership transitions. I think we talked about that. What I would take away from what you just said is that the resistance itself is tricky. Being able to both one recognize it and then being able to name it is tricky. In spite of that, leaders should always plan for it, just like what you just talked about productive pairing. Like that's us planning for it. If this happens, we'll do this, or if that happens, we'll do this. So I don't think you can ignore it. I don't think leaders can ignore it. It will always be there unless we're direct about it. It doesn't necessarily mean you're confrontational about it, but it means that you have a plan for how to move through it and that you give people grace and space and time to find out what's underneath it.

Speaker 1: 17:29

That's approaching resistance from a place of curiosity, like why is that? Why is this happening? Or what is it that you're afraid of? Lots of times it is loss. It's also people being afraid. So there's fear people being afraid of looking incompetent. No one wants to look incompetent, even if you really are. You don't want to look that way. Once you can tap into that, then it becomes okay. How can you help that person move through it? Sometimes it's not going to work and it's a parting of ways. I hate to say it, but sometimes it's like we're not going to finish this path again, which non-profit folks hate to hear that, but it's true. But in other times, where there's a real willingness to understand and learn, there could be a beautiful moment of helping people work through it.

Speaker 2: 18:13

I know you said you hate to say it, but it needs to be said.

Speaker 2: 18:20

And the other thing that needs to be said is that you are likely losing people now You're likely losing people because your organization is not equity aligned In any organization larger organizations who track their turnover, you know, see what that's telling you. It may be that people are also opting not to come to your organization, not to put in an application to a position that they might otherwise be interested in, because of the reputation of your organization, because they don't see the words on your page, on your website, matching up with what they see in the community or what they're hearing from people who are inside your organization. So right now, your organization is losing people, right? And are you losing people who are values aligned and are you trying to hold on to people who aren't values aligned? It's a choice. Doing nothing is a choice, so you need to expect personnel changes when you do this.

Speaker 2: 19:09

You need to expect that some folks just aren't. They're not going to get with the program and they're going to move on. Some folks just aren't. They're not going to get with the program and they're going to move on. And that might feel a certain kind of way, but you should stop and understand that that's already happening and you're just not seeing it.

Speaker 1: 19:24

Yeah for sure. In addition to personnel changes, the opportunity this work gives for every leader is to be specific and clear about what you believe. Is to be specific and clear about what you believe, and when you're specific and clear, the risk is, like you just said, like some people not gonna rock with you, some people will rock with you, right, and that's exactly what they've been wanting to hear, and so that door opens both ways.

Speaker 2: 19:48

Right that personal growth and development as a leader in this work is something else that you should expect along the way. You need to understand that there is an inherent need for self-awareness in this work. There's an inherent need for understanding how it is that you show up, how your identity shows up, where your actions might not be lining up with the identity that you want to have. You need to be aware of your existing patterns of working that you may have worked really hard to establish, not understanding the ways that they are not actually fully aligned with your values and where you want to take the organization. So, yes, you will become uncomfortable with some of your personal SOPs. Right, your standard operating procedures. You're going to question those, and that's necessary.

Speaker 2: 20:37

That's part of the work. That doesn't mean you have to go it alone. You can form a subset of your peers who can be a support system for you. It might be best if those folks aren't actually in your organization. It might be people that you can have frank conversations with about how this work might be making you uncomfortable or how you're not sure about this piece of the work or not sure about how to move this piece forward, that support system, whether it's bringing somebody in as a professional coach or whether it's finding peers who are facing similar issues is really important, because this work will destabilize your way of looking at your organization as a necessity, because that's what change is like. Change is destabilizing, and it forces us to examine our actions in the context of what we're trying to achieve and how we're trying to achieve it in the context of what we're trying to achieve and how we're trying to achieve it.

Speaker 1: 21:42

Yeah, I agree, change can also bring about great joy. Joy that you're living into your personal values. Joy that the way your organization is showing up aligns with mission, vision and values. So I'll always say that it should also bring about joy. I want to circle back to something that you just talked about which I think is really important for leaders to consider as it connects to their personal growth and journey. That guidance you gave around having a peer subset or peer group or a team or whatever you want to call it. It's very important for leaders of color. I think it's very important for Black women who lead, and I'll just again speak from my own experience For me, those people in my career who have supported me when I was in organizations, who have supported me, who listened, who gave advice, was amazing, so incredibly helpful to my journey in this space and as a professional, and as a professional in a subject matter because I was doing budget and tax early in my career where there were just at that time weren't a lot of Black people.

Speaker 1: 22:46

A colleague and friend of mine is finishing up her dissertation on sisterhood and sisterhood in the context of Black women in professional spaces, and I'm on her committee and so this is like top of mind. The women in her study talk about how important those relationships are because of how challenging the spaces are, how perfect you have to show up, how the elasticity for mistakes is not the same right, the expectations aren't the same, the credit isn't the same in this work. So I just want to name that because I think that's another place. We experience leadership very differently by our identity. There could be other examples, but that was just kind of top of mind based on what you were saying. That kind of sparked for me when you were talking.

Speaker 2: 23:33

And I would add a caution for folks who are well-identified, like me. I bet I know what you're going to say when I say when I talk about a support system, when I talk about a peer group, that doesn't mean you can turn to the closest person of color and expect them to perform that for you.

Speaker 1: 23:53

You can't.

Speaker 2: 23:56

This is something. I think we may have talked about this when you were on my podcast, Joanna. I bring it up pretty often because it's a pattern that we have seen repeat itself and somebody is signing on to help you walk through this. Great, If you're just looking for somebody to pat you on the back and tell you it's going to be okay or to say you're doing the right thing, that's not all right, that is not authentic. There is a different emotional tax here and there are different things that we need to work through, based on the way we have all been racialized and our experiences, how we show up and how the world sees us. So I just want to put that caveat on there because I don't want what I said earlier to be misinterpreted.

Speaker 1: 24:45

No, I hear you. I remember one time I was invited into a space that was a space for white leaders and I wasn't sure if I should be there. This was earlier in my career. I log into the Zoom and my presence changed the space, because I felt like people couldn't be free to talk about their experiences for fear of being thought I would think they're racist. So I log out immediately. It was like no, this is, I don't need to be in this space because I don't. People need room to be able to talk about all of their stuff in a way that they won't feel I'm judging them. I think coaches are different. If you want to hire a coach for a specific thing, that's fine. I do think white leaders need those spaces, just like I think Black women need those spaces, and I think folks of color, however you identify need those spaces to be able to connect and share in a way that's free.

Speaker 2: 25:42

We have different work to do. We do. We have different work to do around the same goal.

Speaker 1: 25:46

We do. We do. There's different work to do, but there's still work. And I'm going to say one last thing about this, and then I think we can move on. But all work isn't shared work.

Speaker 1: 25:56

If you're listening to this pod and you're leading an organization, whatever, no matter what kind, and there's work that you have to do, sometimes there's work that you can do that's shared, whether that's you can do work with your board, you can do work with your staff, you can work with the coach, you can work with these peer groups we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 26:14

If you're connected to a network, there are network-based groups you can work on, but then sometimes there is a real need for work where you get alone with yourself. Not all of the work that you need to do in this space is shared, and I would say that for myself, some of the things, the work that I've done and the growth that I've experienced in this space is really me, it's my journey, it's getting along with myself, and so I just want to name that, because I think there's this tendency of like let's create a group. That's amazing. We all need those kinds of supports. But there's also the getting along with yourself to figure out who you are and who you are in the context of this work and what your leadership looks like in the context of this work.

Speaker 2: 26:54

That's really powerful, and it brings me back to something you said earlier about the grace and space to do this work, which is another thing to look out, for along the way You're going to mess something up right. There's going to be setbacks in this work, both personally, individually, organizationally. There will be setbacks because the work is hard. When you understand that going in, that's easier to deal with and, I also think, when your team understands that going in, it's easier to get through those setbacks.

Speaker 1: 27:25

There are setbacks that are connected to the way your organization works. So the natural ebbs and flows of your calendar of grant funding organizations, nonprofits, philanthropies, calendar of grant funding organizations, nonprofits, philanthropies, government agencies all work in a context and most of the time they have very little control of what that context looks like or what that context is calling for or asking for right. So I'm thinking of the legislative space, for example. Very little control most organizations have over what an individual legislature is going to take up in a particular session, or what Congress takes up or whatever. Wherever your locus of control is, whatever your focus areas are, and so setbacks are going to happen.

Speaker 1: 28:05

There's stops and starts happen based on resources, staffing life right, and so letting go of the idea that this journey is a linear one, because it's not, and letting go of the idea that you have to be perfect, that you have to always be doing something in a way that you always get your outcome. Sometimes you just don't, sometimes you try, it doesn't work. You move on right, understanding that and giving yourself space for that and, to your point, being able to have that conversation with your staff to say this is going to happen, it's not going to be perfect. We're going to have fits and starts. It's jagged, right? We call this the jagged journey, sometimes Like it's jagged peaks and valleys. All of that it happens.

Speaker 2: 28:57

None of these are the end. That phrase that you used, joanna, about jagged journey, when you're able to expect that, you're able to get through those setbacks and you are prepared to pivot, that is another one of the things to expect along the way the need to pivot, the need to adapt. I want to name something that you've added to our work. We were working on a framework to help folks think through that individual journey of how they can be intentional about working towards equity, and I remember I came in with something that I thought was pretty polished. It was very well-reasoned, it was five different steps. That I thought was pretty polished, it was very well-reasoned, it was five different steps. And you said, well, what about when things don't go the way that you had planned? And I thought, yeah, I missed that one. So now we've actually have adapt in that framework. No, that's our learn to adapt framework, but that notion of it's not gonna be A to Z, it's not going to be the way you've laid it out. It's really important to keep in mind throughout this process.

Speaker 2: 30:04

You've probably heard me say this before, joanna, that I don't often quote dead generals, but when I do, it's usually Truman. Truman said plans are useless. Planning is essential. Truman said plans are useless. Planning is essential, and what I take from that is that nothing is ever going to go the way we had anticipated. But being prepared with the different scenarios that may come up allows us to move through those quickly without being completely thrown off track. When you're able to establish feedback mechanisms, when you're able to create a culture that is giving honest feedback, you'll often find those pivot points much earlier and they will be much less costly to you, your organization and your overall progress. If you're not waiting until everything is fully baked, if you're not waiting until things fail dramatically. You're not waiting until things fail dramatically. The more feedback you can get, the more you can be open to different ways of seeing things. Those pivots don't have to be dramatic.

Speaker 1: 31:07

They can be adjustments along the way. I like that. I like the pivots not always needing to be dramatic. One of the things that we encourage our clients to do is to think about equity in the context of the everyday. There's the big move that we always talk about, the big moves, and then we talk about the everyday. The opportunity in that is these small pivots, right, like these small decisions that ultimately add up into something bigger. But also, every day gives a new opportunity to do this work and to do something that's on your plate in a different way.

Speaker 1: 31:45

Sometimes, when people start this journey, or even when they find themselves further in than starting, there's a natural question of where are we going to land? Where are we going to end up? What is this going to look like? So for us, it's like I don't know. Like we just said this the other day, what you put into it is what you get out of it the opportunity and the joy that can come from being open. When you have to pivot, you can think of it as oh my gosh, I have to figure out how I'm going to do this. Or you can think about it as the opportunity that I have is to change the way that I work in a way that's going to be more equitable to someone on my team or to someone in the community or in service to mission, vision and values, and so I think it's important to connect those two things the hard part of that, but also the opportunity in that.

Speaker 2: 32:38

I want to connect something that you just said with something you said earlier, because I think it's okay to be selfish in this work and let me put some context around that.

Speaker 1: 32:47

Ooh say more. I'm intrigued. Say more.

Speaker 2: 32:50

Earlier, you said there's joy in this work, and just now you also said that this will create something more equitable for someone on your team. But ultimately, when you're doing this work that aligns with your values, that feels good. Right, that is a reward to yourself for actually thinking about how you're showing up in the world and how you're creating the kind of environment that you want to be a part of, that other people want to be a part of. It's okay to see yourself in this work. If we don't see our own self-interest in this work and I'm speaking as a straight white male here if I don't see myself in this work, then how do I hold myself accountable? So, will you get something out of this? Yes, if you do this right, you will get something out of this, and that is a sense of contentment, that's a sense of joy in living the life that you want to lead and being the kind of person that you want to be.

Speaker 1: 33:43

I love that. I don't know that I can add anything to that. We'll leave it there until next time. That's this week's episode of Race in the Workplace. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast and share it with a friend who can use these strategies in their work. My hope for the podcast is that it reaches every person who needs it. Until next time, take care.