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How can company's Improve their DEI Stragegy
42 Plays2 years ago
This week, for episode 19 of “The 3D Podcast” me, Cedric Chambers sits down with an awesome diversity leader, Salima Bhimani. During this interview, Salima shared her thoughts aboutThe Future of D,E&I and Where We Go From Here. This is a great episode packed with a ton of gems, so get your notepads ready as we dive deep and “Discuss the Dimensions of Diversity”.
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
you
Introduction to the 3D Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey, I'm Cedric Chambers, and I would like to welcome you to another episode of the 3D Podcast, a masterclass where we share with you everything you need to know about how to transform diversity and inclusion in your organization as well as in your community. We're on a mission to amplify the voices of leaders that are making an impact in the world today so that we can have a better tomorrow.
00:00:34
Speaker
Our goal every episode is to keep it simple, honest, and transparent with you by uncovering the truths in diversity and inclusion with the hope of creating behavioral change all while presenting it from a unique perspective. So look, if you're ready, get your notepad out, pour you a drink, and let's dive deep as we discuss the dimensions of diversity.
Meet Nicole Herrera: DE&I Expertise
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the 3D Podcast where we speak to real practitioners that are making real change in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. Look, I'm excited for our show today as we are speaking to Nicole Herrera. Nicole has over 10 years of experience in tech and DE&I.
00:01:25
Speaker
And she currently leads diversity, equity, and inclusion for Android at Google. While at Google, Nicole has lived and worked in Argentina and Colombia, and is an expert in go-to-market strategies for companies looking to expand their presence in Latin America. In addition to her work at Google, Nicole is the founder of Her Error, a training and consulting firm focused on helping companies improve their DE&I strategy, with a particular focus on advancing women of color in tech.
00:01:52
Speaker
Look, I'm excited for this discussion and I hope you are too. So without further ado, let's jump into this discussion. So Nicole, thanks for joining us today on 3D Podcast. Excited, excited to have you here. How are you doing today?
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm doing great. I'm really ready to dive into a good conversation today. Likewise, likewise, likewise. So I'm excited before our listeners, right?
Nicole's Career Journey into DE&I
00:02:13
Speaker
I would love it, right? I gave a little bit of intro kind of background on you, but I would love it if you could just start us off by going a little bit over your background, you know, telling us about your career journey, your story to how you got to today. And then we can dive deeper from there. Awesome. Thank you so much. So.
00:02:29
Speaker
A little bit about my background, I studied Latin American studies at Wellesley College. So that is the degree I got for my undergrad. And that is really what kicked off the beginning of my career in Latin America. So I started my career with Google in Buenos Aires, Argentina, traveled a ton with Google and eventually ended up in Bogota, Colombia for a little while. So the first half of my career with Google was really in sales.
00:02:56
Speaker
And for a long time, I thought that was all I wanted to do. But slowly but surely, the universe started to push me in quite a different direction. And I'd say my first time really jumping into DEI work was actually working on ERG stuff for Google. And that's really what started to open the door of different opportunities for me to be
00:03:17
Speaker
looking at jobs in the DEI space.
Leadership Principles for Equity
00:03:20
Speaker
And I got the opportunity to lead our Latinx market outreach for our AdWords business and helped launch a program that's now called the Google Digital Coaches Program that works with Black and Latinx small business owners to help give them tools and resources to grow their business online. And then that slowly but surely led me to be working in
00:03:40
Speaker
DEI full-time, which is what I do now for the Android business at Google. And my newest endeavor is I've actually launched my own personal brand that's called Her Era. So for under that, I do speaking, consulting with the main focus on advancing women of color in the workplace.
00:04:00
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. You're moving. You're moving. So let me ask you this. So I love the journey of your career. As you've navigated through, you've worked just in a variety of different places. You have a lot of different experiences. What do you think are like two or three of those kind of leadership principles that you've gained over this time or principles that you've used to help continue to navigate your career? I would say the first and foremost is tapping into your passion and really like leading with that and
00:04:30
Speaker
letting that be your North star for like the career decisions that you're going to make. It's really easy. I think in today's hustle and bustle to get caught up in like, Oh, somebody else's version of what success looks like. And I think we get like almost obsessed with different ideas of things that we think we need to be doing or being in order to reach what success looks like.
Role of ERGs in Diversity Strategies
00:04:52
Speaker
And we forget to just tap back into ourselves and our own inner voice. And like, where is that leading me? What am I most passionate about? So I'd say that is
00:05:01
Speaker
the first piece. And then the second piece, I guess, is more personal to me and like what I am passionate about, which is like community driven work, equity focused work and social justice. And so that to me is what a true leader is working on no matter what your day job is, you know, finding time in your life to contribute to like making the world a better place and a fairer place.
00:05:25
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I love it. I love it. And so I know that as listeners are listening to this episode, everyone's at different points in their careers and they're just trying to navigate themselves. And I love sharing and hearing other stories, right? Because there's always little nuggets that we can take out of it that can help us in our own. So I'm excited. And so as we go deeper, right?
00:05:47
Speaker
Today, I'm excited about the topic because it is something that I would say most companies or many companies do something in, right? When it comes to diversity and inclusion, right? You say, hey, where do I start or where do a lot of organizations start? And one of those places are employee resource groups or business resource groups or affinity groups and so many names out there for these groups. But that's a place to where they start. And I'm excited to have this conversation because, you know, that
00:06:15
Speaker
I think when we think about the purpose, when we think about how should we look at ERGs, kind of the overall, how do we use them in various different aspects of the business as a little bit unknown, right? Or people, I would say, don't dive as deep as they should into the topic. So I'm excited about the topic today. And so just so that our listeners kind of get their footing into kind of
00:06:36
Speaker
what it is that we're going to discuss. I want you to start with, what are ERGs, explain what they are, and then what's their purpose inside of an organization? For sure. ERGs stand for employee resource groups, and they're really self-led, employee-driven groups of people that come together based on either an identity that they share or also a shared lived experience.
00:07:06
Speaker
So for example, I participate in Google's ERG for Latinx employees, as well as the ERG for women employees. And there's pretty much employee resource groups for all types of identity groups. So we have, you know, for black employees, Native American employees, indigenous employees, LGBTQ employees, among others. And the purpose of ERGs, I think it can vary a lot based on the group.
00:07:32
Speaker
And I think that is the most important piece to really call out in this work is that ERGs are meant to be employee led and driven. And so in that sense, they are by nature more of a grassroots bottoms up community led organization. And so what that means is we need to let ERG leaders really shape the agenda, the objectives and the goals. And it's really up to them to define what that looks like. And so in my experience, I think
00:08:01
Speaker
Most ERGs main focus is on providing a safe space and a community group for others who share your identity. And with that, often shared challenges that you might be experiencing. So I think especially for people who are historically underrepresented backgrounds, where you may really be the only one on your team or even at your company sometimes, it can feel super important to find community
00:08:28
Speaker
in others that share your identity group and really find that safe space for you. With that, I think a lot of these groups focus a lot on networking, different types of events to get to know one another, as well as raising awareness around their group to the broader company. That's, I think, the main TLDR, as we say.
00:08:50
Speaker
No, awesome, awesome. And so just taking that thought process, right? You know, employee lead, you know, really, you think about networking, raising awareness, all of these things, right? When you, when we look at ERGs traditionally,
00:09:02
Speaker
How have they been set up and used in organizations? So I kind of get an idea of, okay, this is what they should be doing, but how have they been traditionally being used inside of organizations, inside diversity, inclusion strategies, and what are some of the most common gaps that you see that's preventing these programs from being successful?
Integration of ERGs into DE&I Strategies
00:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think it's important.
00:09:27
Speaker
especially in the DEI space to really put context in place with a lot of these things because with ERGs, it is like a buzz thing that is going on right now, but I think it's important to remember just the context before we got to the place that we're in right now. I would say that traditionally, ERGs have really been more independent organizations.
00:09:54
Speaker
They have not always necessarily been a part of the diversity and inclusion strategy at a lot of companies because of the fact that they are employee-led and employee-driven. So they haven't always been embedded into a company's DEI strategy or mapped back to companies like full-time DEI team. And that's because of what I talked about before, right? Like each group really kind of self-forms and defines its own structure. And then they would partner with different business areas as they saw
00:10:24
Speaker
they had a certain need from a certain business. But now what we're seeing is that as companies start to invest more and more into DEI, we're really seeing a shift in that and ERGs are becoming a very central part to a lot of companies DEI strategy. Within that, it's becoming a pretty crucial, I think, workstream related back to belonging and inclusion strategy.
00:10:50
Speaker
And we're seeing a lot of companies really using ERGs as a pulse on the ground, I think to better understand the needs of different groups and see how they can support them. So I think depending on where different leaders or different companies are at on their journey, we still hear a lot of like, well, I don't know what people need to feel more included. I don't know what I should be doing to actually improve like the belonging experience of people that don't look like me. And so we see a lot of.
00:11:20
Speaker
companies really relying more and more on ERGs to be that pulse and to kind of like be that informing arm to the business, to surface different challenges they may be having and just like different pieces about their identity group. Let me ask this question. So what are any, if there are any
00:11:41
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indicators. Let's say the organization currently has ERGs today, and what are some of those indicators that the ERG isn't performing as it should, or we need to start to think about retool in the way that our ERGs operate or we provide assistance to the group. What are some of those indicators so that as leaders are looking at their ERGs and the performance of them, are there any kind of indicators that help them say, okay,
00:12:11
Speaker
This is something that we really need to address or the ERGs may be going down the wrong path and we need to refocus.
Challenges Facing ERGs
00:12:18
Speaker
I think companies shouldn't be waiting for that moment to happen. If you have an ERG, you need to be thinking about how you are going to support and amplify the group. So my advice would be don't sit and wait on that. If you have groups that are starting to form or if they've existed for a while, it's probably about time. Like you should check in with them and think about the best things.
00:12:45
Speaker
that you can put in place to support them. I would say we can talk a little bit about kind of like some of the gaps and problems that I tend to see with ERG work. I think the first is it is a fine line between companies supporting ERGs versus trying to enforce a company led
00:13:06
Speaker
top-down strategy on the ERG. So one of the things that we talk about is nothing about us without us, right? So don't put a strategy together for me without somebody that looks like me at the table because these are people who have lived experience in their identity.
00:13:26
Speaker
You need to be letting them lead what it is that their group needs versus having a company-enforced strategy. It's their job to advocate to the company about it and then the company's job to solve for it, not vice versa. Because what we see happen in the inverse is that we often get a lot of performative stuff that's being dictated to the ERG that they need to be
00:13:49
Speaker
Producing this amount of events or be become the person who's gonna now recruit everybody that looks like them for the company and that's not what an ERG is for and that starts to become like a more harmful problematic space actually the second mistake I think we see very often is companies are relying too heavily on ERGs as their only strategy for driving more inclusion and belonging and
00:14:15
Speaker
It's definitely part of the recipe when it's done right, but it can't be your whole thing or even your half thing, I would say, because you're then putting the burden on people who are raising their hand to say that it's not an inclusive place and I'm from an underrepresented group to be the one responsible to make your company more inclusive for themselves or more equitable or more diverse. So again, that's just like perpetuating the problem. And then,
00:14:44
Speaker
kind of along those lines, we often see these groups heavily under resourced in all kind of aspects of what it means to resource a group. And so there's not always equitable funds that get allocated for the work to get done provided by the company. So if you're coming in and saying, Hey, I need you to do this amount of recruiting, or we need this ERG to like really be our voice around this space and whatever that looks like,
00:15:11
Speaker
Well, you need to fund what that work is going to look like by investing in whatever that is and also paying people to do this work because this should not be unpaid work at an organization. It's people going above and beyond what they've been hired to do. And then lastly, I think another space that does not get enough airtime, it's starting to get more airtime, is resourcing around mental health support in this space and wellbeing in this space. Because when people are raising their hand to do this,
00:15:41
Speaker
Again, like I said, on top of their job, at some point they're going to experience fatigue. At some point they're going to experience burnout. Given the nature of a lot of topics that might come up and just things that are happening in the world for different groups, there's a lot of trauma that can happen that comes along with doing this work or can be brought up or triggered by something that people are working on. I don't see enough companies
00:16:06
Speaker
investing in that mental health support for the leaders who are doing this a lot of their time. Then the last piece of under-resourced is ERG leaders are often not recognized enough for the work that they're doing in their performance reviews. This work should be what is a standout example that leads to a promotion.
00:16:31
Speaker
For some people, this is the equivalent of leading a large sized organization on a global scale. You're putting together a leadership structure, you've got committees, you maybe have chapters all over the world. There's a ton of impact that's coming out of it. I don't see a lot of companies putting an equitable process in place to make sure that this work gets fairly recognized in performance reviews.
00:16:59
Speaker
Wow. That was a lot. And as you were going through.
00:17:07
Speaker
I was thinking to myself in like past companies, I was like, yep, seeing that one, yep, seeing that one, yep. I'm just checking them off in my head like, some people just need to like scrap and start over. I think the biggest ones, and you know, this is what I've seen, but you know, the biggest ones is that, that I've seen, and kind of piggybacking off a little bit what you said is that,
00:17:34
Speaker
The one is the workload, right? And I think that we come in with the best intentions that, look, we're going to have this executive board. We're going to have people in the organization helping. But then we find out that it all lies on like few people to get a lot of work done, right? Because everyone else is going back to doing their day jobs. And they put their job in front of the ERG. But then the leaders of that group feel that responsibility to pick up the slack and to do what they can do to make it move forward.
00:18:02
Speaker
Which ultimately I love the aspect of mental health because there's like serious not only like burnout that's related to it, but you know think about an event happens in society, right? And then now, you know, the company is looking at how the ERG will address, right? Well, that's George Floyd, whether that's, you know, any event that's happening, how is the ERG going to address it? Not thinking through
00:18:26
Speaker
the individual and what are they going through, right? And what do they have to deal with and process before they can even like start to communicate this or lead an organization? Because depending on how big your team is, I mean, ERGs for all intents and purposes are separate organizations.
00:18:41
Speaker
Right. With a structure with leadership team. I mean, so you are many CEO. Let me ask you this. How have you seen the pay aspect work?
Compensation and Support for ERG Leaders
00:18:50
Speaker
Because I fully believe the ERG leaders should get some type of compensation because this is above and beyond your job. What are some of the common forms and ways that you've seen company address it? I'd say that we're at the very beginning of that conversation for most organizations. I haven't seen a lot of
00:19:09
Speaker
companies put this into play yet. I think it's in the conversational stage. So then what we see end up happening is now, it's another thing for ERG leaders. It's like, okay, can you put that business proposal together and do the math on what this should look like versus somebody from the actual compensation team in HR coming up with what fair pay for this should look like. I think a common thing that we see is
00:19:38
Speaker
an annual award that somebody might get for the leadership that they do in ERG work or some type of extra bonus that gets thrown on for a big event that somebody may be put on. And so what that actually ends up leading to is deeper inequity. It's really sad, and I hate to call it that, but it's what we see happening because
00:20:00
Speaker
when you leave it up to somebody's individual choice or individual whatever, that's when bias comes out and not everybody is going to get recognized equitably, even within the same ERG group, right? And so that is why it's so important to think about these things from like that systemic
00:20:16
Speaker
process place and then the other piece with what you were mentioning like with the mental health side and relying on ERGs and moments like when George Floyd is happening and what happens is you can't rely on the ERG to keep this at the front and center of the conversation like you can't be relying on the ERG to be the one saying this needs to be the priority this needs to be the priority this needs to be the priority and
00:20:42
Speaker
we get what is really like this white urgency and this white guilt that starts to come out. And that becomes like the main driver of how people are leading in their decision making without really taking a beat and saying, okay, what, maybe I have good intentions, but what's the actual impact that's going to come out of this? And like, am I potentially actually going to be causing more harm to people who are already like experiencing something
00:21:07
Speaker
but I can't even relate to right now. And so I think that's a really important principle in DEI work. We talk about first do no harm and leading with that in mind and making sure that you're thinking through like what are all the potential outcomes even in like the best intention and best case scenario where you could actually be perpetuating more harm with something that you're trying to do or stand up with these groups. Nice.
00:21:32
Speaker
I mean, just to understand, I mean, for folks listening, right, I think this is something just to start to get your mind thinking about, you know, how can we approach this differently, right? I don't, you know, and I get your advice, so you tell me what you think. You know, something just popped in my head around just like, you know, doing like, I wouldn't necessarily say time studies, but like, in the beginning, seeing, you know, have folks track their time and see how much they're actually working.
00:21:53
Speaker
on the ERG so we can understand, you know, out of a 40 hour week, how much time is being taken up, right? And then, you know, X, not necessarily the exact time, but is it happening in the evening time, early in the morning before work? Because, you know, even when you have ERGs, right, and you're leading them, their manager, that's actually the work that they have to do, their manager still is looking like the work comes first, right at the end of the day. So
00:22:18
Speaker
They're looking like, how many times can I go to my manager and say, I'm late because I had to do an event or I had to do something else. Even communicating how the people who are leading, involved heavily, even communicating with their team, with their managers
00:22:37
Speaker
From a leadership, from an organizational perspective, what is the expectation of ERG leaders, right? Because there needs to be some give and take because we don't want people to be, you know, staying up to two, three in the morning trying to get things done for the ERG because between eight to five, they're focused on their day job and they just don't have time to do it. And so we need to kind of have that conversation, right, to as far as my leadership perspective set in the tone for how to operate in this space. And so from your perspective,
00:23:07
Speaker
knowing that we have, we've talked through some gaps, we've talked through what are some of those things that we see as challenges for those leaders. How can we leverage ERG so that it can be more impactful? We know the gaps, but now what can we do and how can we leverage them so that we can actually get great outcomes out of our ERGs inside of these organizations?
Transforming ERGs to Advocacy Groups
00:23:31
Speaker
I think what companies should be setting goals around are really
00:23:37
Speaker
how am I empowering, uplifting, and amplifying the work that ERGs are doing, which is really a shift in that mindset that I was talking about versus relying on them to be the driver of inclusion and belonging. It's like, okay, if this is what these teams are defining that needs to be front and center, what am I now going to do as a company to make sure that there's going to be accountability in place and resources in place to act on the needs
00:24:07
Speaker
that ERGs are surfacing. And so some of the most effective and impactful ERG leaders that I have seen is when they shift into this mindset of
00:24:19
Speaker
influencing and advocating. They are no longer the owners responsible to get all of that work done because there's just no way, right? Like how you're talking about with the time, where am I going to keep coming up with the time to do all these extra jobs? I think that an example to make it more tangible for people is
00:24:37
Speaker
Let's just say a company is lacking a Spanish language strategy for a certain product, for example. The most effective ERG will advocate for the company to allocate the resources that are needed to take that work on. The most ineffective ERGs are the ones that are going to raise their hand and say, okay, let me translate everything that needs to get translated for you to be able to launch this product now.
00:25:03
Speaker
in Spanish, that's less sustainable. That's not equitable for anyone involved. And I see that happening a lot on small scale and large scale with different things. And I think it's a double-edged sword, you know, because people who are from underrepresented groups, and I'm sure you can relate to this, we often feel a very personal, deeply personal responsibility when we see or recognize unfairness or inequity or lack of inclusion to
00:25:32
Speaker
to be the one to fix it and raise our hand and help make it better. But we can't be the only ones that are doing that. And so that is why I think, like I said, the most effective ERG leaders are shifting into this space of like advocates and influencers at the company. And what that means is companies need to be investing in training for those skill sets for these leaders to be able to flush out and develop those skill sets because
00:26:00
Speaker
you're gonna be talking very likely with like senior people within your organization. You might not even have experience ever doing that or pushing proposals forward. And so it'd be great to see more companies kind of investing in that along the lines of what I mentioned before of like that empowering and uplifting space to really make it more effective and impactful.
00:26:20
Speaker
No, awesome. What's your thoughts on ERG leaders, that being actually defined as 50% of their actual job?
Formalizing ERG Leadership Roles
00:26:34
Speaker
What's your thoughts there versus like, hey, you have 100% of this job and I need you to add on the ERG stuff. What do you think about as organizations, and I'm just talking to the listeners here, as they're thinking through other ways in which we can approach it, or even things that we should try out that just haven't traditionally been tried. What's your thoughts on creating some type of structure, a model like that, or is there another structure that you would?
00:26:58
Speaker
You know, say, hey, let's test it out. It might not work. It might work, but this is something that can give us some data that can help us decide kind of what's the right path to go down for our organization. I really like that idea. I think.
00:27:12
Speaker
People would probably be really excited about that and more excited than they are right now because there's no air coverage for people like how you were saying. And then what happens is it really does end up depending on your manager and what their expectation is of you. And even if there are company-wide goals around this that are saying ERGs are important and we need to focus on inclusion and belonging,
00:27:36
Speaker
that doesn't always have a trickle-down effect to every person's individual manager. Not every individual manager is okay with people spending time doing this work. So like you said, what happens then is people are doing it at late hours or early hours and scrapping to get two jobs done. So I really like that idea. I think it would be really interesting to model out. I think people would get more excited than they are already about working on this stuff if they had more of that air coverage to do it.
00:28:06
Speaker
Awesome. Well, you heard it here, everybody. So go try it and then Nicole co-signed on it. And so.
00:28:14
Speaker
tag both of us. But don't blame us if it goes wrong, don't blame us. But if it goes right, tag us and say you got the idea from here. So no, this is awesome. So kind of wrapping up a little bit here, for those that are listening, for practitioners that are out there, and when we think about the 3D podcast, it's really about how are we going to change behaviors and actually go out and take actions in that third dimension.
Enhancing ERG Effectiveness
00:28:39
Speaker
And so for the practitioners that are listening,
00:28:42
Speaker
What are two to three things that once they hit stop, which you don't have to hit stop, you just go to the next episode. But after they hit stop from this podcast, from this episode, what are two to three things that they can do tomorrow that'll help them get on the right track to starting to have a more successful ERG program?
00:29:03
Speaker
I think the first piece is asking for leadership development training. If you feel like I need help to become a better advocate, so I stopped falling into this trap of doing all the work and trying to do all the things, ask for help, ask for those resources, ask for whatever leadership development training that you and your fellow ERG leaders need to become
00:29:27
Speaker
better advocates. So that's my number one advice to I think anyone who's listening in who's already like in this space and feeling that burnout. And then the second piece
00:29:38
Speaker
of advice is more so for like those HR folks who are listening in. I think everybody needs to be looking at those processes and systems that are in place and creating an equitable process like we talked about to allocate budget and compensation to the ERG leaders at their company and that process to ensure that equitable recognition of the work is going to happen in performance reviews. And then don't forget about it. You need to audit
00:30:05
Speaker
Those processes that get put in place to make sure that they're actually happening consistently across the company so those are some big things they're not easy things but you aren't going away anytime soon and so.
00:30:21
Speaker
you want to make sure you're doing it right and supporting these people and their voices and making sure that they're getting the right visibility and the right resources. No, this is awesome. You look, they're not going anywhere. More and more companies are still seeing ERGs as the first kind of step for them in this space when they're launching their DNI programs, DNI programs. And so, you know, it makes more sense to get it right. And so, you know, if anybody is, like I said, trying any of these things or if you just have something different that you know has worked
00:30:49
Speaker
Right. I would love to just hear it. You can come in, you know, and share and let us know so that we can also use this in our world. And so, you know, I want to make sure that we tackle this. And so, you know, I know that, you know, you're working in a D.E. in our space.
Nicole's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:31:04
Speaker
But can you tell us a little bit about kind of your organization, your company and kind of what you're doing right as a founding entrepreneur space and kind of how is that going thus far? I'm so excited about it. I feel like it's
00:31:18
Speaker
It's been really amazing and just personally rewarding.
00:31:22
Speaker
My other big piece of advice to those listening in is to invest in yourself. Bingo. Invest in yourself before investing in anything or anyone else you need to be investing in yourself. And that is really what I did. And that's why I made the decision to launch a company and my personal brand. And it has just been like the most rewarding thing. And when you work on something that you are truly passionate about and it's aligned with like
00:31:48
Speaker
your bowls and all of these things you would be shocked how quickly opportunities start to open up for you and the universe is just like sending you those constant signs of reinforcement that this is like where you are.
00:32:01
Speaker
and what you are meant to be doing. I'm sure you can relate to that a ton with your work as well. And so right now I'm focused on just getting my name out there and continuing to open up different opportunities for speaking at different organizations and conferences. There's a ton of work that's going on in the DEI space right now. And my focus is on making sure that that work
00:32:24
Speaker
gets done right and that the right people have a voice in those conversations and not that. Then I also do consulting work with different organizations who are looking for help and don't necessarily have the in-house resources to be building out their strategy or shaping what they should be doing. Then lastly, I also do workshops with
00:32:43
Speaker
Different people particularly women and people of color who are like looking to get more into this space and become that better advocate for themselves at their company or think about different ways that they can actually turn their identity into like strength like that should be Marketed and valued on their resume. So I do a lot of work with students and early career folks who are looking to like dabble more into that space and develop out that skill set. Oh
00:33:08
Speaker
I love it. You can hear the passion, right? In the law of attraction, right? This is one of those things to where, look, once you get into it, if this is your passion, this is what you wanna do and you love doing it, it's amazing how things align and they come together to help you work out what it is you're trying to work out. And so I can see it in you and I can see how much you're loving this. And I think that, I know for me, it was the same way, right? It was like, I didn't know how everything was gonna happen.
00:33:37
Speaker
But it lined up and it happened. So this is exciting. And if people want to get more about kind of you and the organization or, you know, your services, where can it go to find out more information? You can find me on Instagram at its dot her era. H E R E R A. And my website is www dot her dash era.
00:33:59
Speaker
Awesome, awesome, awesome. And so I love to tackle this. And we're also going to link the website in the description. So if you need it, everybody go click on it and go to it. But I love to end the conversation off with, you know, when you think about the impact that we're trying to make, an impact that you're trying to make.
Nicole's Legacy and Impact
00:34:17
Speaker
I love this, you know, I always think about legacy and I think about in order for us to have and leave a legacy is something that we work on now. Right. So that we can make sure that we're doing the things that we need to do to lead the legacy that we want to lead. And so when I think about legacy, what I would like for you to do when these exercises is in 25 words or less.
00:34:38
Speaker
What is your leadership legacy statement? And I want you to think about this in reference to if someone meets you one time or they meet Nicole 10 times, right? Everyone ideal is going to have something similar to say, right? And, you know, whatever that may be about you. And I want to know, right, when I ask somebody about you, when I go have that conversation, you know, tell me a little bit about Nicole, what's your experience? Like, what's that legacy that you're leaving behind?
00:35:03
Speaker
I think my legacy and what I hope people will say when speaking to others about me is that Nicole is a game changer and an advocate really working to make more space for women of color and make the world a fairer and a better place. There you go.
00:35:22
Speaker
There you go. I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, look, this has been an amazing conversation. Before we go, do you have any shout outs, any parting words, anything else for the audience to them? You gave out your Instagram, but is there anywhere else that they can connect with you and find you to further the discussion? You can find me on LinkedIn. I'd love to stay in touch. Please reach out. I hope anything that we talked about today inspired you to go out there and invest in yourself and be your own advocate.
00:35:49
Speaker
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, look, that does it for us. Thank you everyone for joining us on another episode of 3D Podcast. This is Cedric and you've been listening to Nicole, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Leader at Android, as well as the founder, CEO, chief head of everything there is to do with her era. Look, go check her out. Go look at
00:36:09
Speaker
you know, the confident information. Look, we want to make sure that we get the word out and just share. And if you have any comments about the show, no matter what it is, share it with us. We'd love to have the discussion. Thanks, Nicole. Thank you so much.
00:36:27
Speaker
Awesome, well that does it for us. Thank you for joining us on another episode of the 3D Podcast. If you would like to connect on social media, follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, at Cedric and Powers. And if you have any questions you'd like me to read or answer on the show, or just wanna know more about my thoughts around diversity and inclusion, entrepreneurship, or just overall business, you can text me. Yes, I said text me at 770-285-0404.
00:36:56
Speaker
You'll receive content straight to your phone on a regular basis and you can message back and forth with not a bot or an assistant. All responses come directly from me. But look, this has been a great episode until next week. This has been Cedric Chambers and you've been listening to the 3d podcast. We out.