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How To Approach Your D&I Journey w/ Lydia Smith
41 Plays4 years ago
This week, for our first episode of “The 3D Podcast” host Cedric Chambers sits down with the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Kohl’s, Lydia Smith to discuss how to approach your Diversity and Inclusion journey when you are just starting out. Lydia shares tips, insights and advice on how to start your Diversity and Inclusion journey and what areas to focus in on when starting out.
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.
Lydia Smith's Journey in Diversity
00:01:04
Speaker
What's up, fam? Look, this is the 3D podcast and I'm excited. Actually, more than excited, probably ecstatic or delighted to speak with our guest today. Look, she's a friend, a past colleague, and whether she knows it or not, an influencer. I'm talking about Lydia Smith. So to provide a little context before we dive into this discussion, Lydia is the head of diversity for Kohl's Incorporated. Yes, the department store.
00:01:28
Speaker
Lydia started her career with GE Healthcare in the information technology program where among many things she led diversity recruitment for the ITLP program before transitioning into Mark. Her passion for diversity and inclusion led her to a role at Northwestern Mutual where she spent three years as an assistant director in diversity and inclusion before taking her current role at Kohl's today. So Lydia, welcome to the show and how are you doing today?
00:01:53
Speaker
Thank you. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be able to have this this real talk conversation with you today. Oh, there we go. There we go. About to get into it. So look, I know I provided a brief intro, but for those out there who don't know you, would you mind sharing your story, your background, how you got into diversity and inclusion and just overall who is Lydia Smith? So basically, I want you to just talk your stuff. OK.
Lydia's Passion and Strategy for Diversity
00:02:18
Speaker
You know, I've been much more unapologetic lately about who I am. And so I would say I am a black woman first. I'm a mother, a daughter, a sister, a Christian, you know, a coach and a consultant. I'm a corporate exec. I have my own business as well. I'm no one thing.
00:02:38
Speaker
I think that's what's really important in this particular season, whether we're entrepreneurs or we're working in corporate America, because I really take it upon myself to show working in this diversity and inclusion space that we as a people, diverse people, particularly people of color and even more specifically black people are not monolithic. I'm very passionate about that in this work. It shows up in how I show up, I guess I would say.
00:03:04
Speaker
So a little bit about my background, I graduated from Florida agricultural and mechanical University Sam you very proud of that.
00:03:14
Speaker
You gotta throw that in there. You gotta throw that in there. And when I graduated, it was at the time of the recession, so I thought I was going into a marketing job, got recruited to go into IT, and landed in GE's IT leadership program. Amazing program, got to work for
00:03:34
Speaker
an amazing leader who's actually still today one of my mentors. She at the time leading the program was tasked with recruiting more diverse talent into technology. The first thing she did was go to someone who was at the time the only black person in the program and the only female in my class and say, what do we need to do to recruit more people like you? That question is basically what started my career in diversity and inclusion.
00:04:04
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I built a strategy which was literally me answering that question. How would we appeal to more people like me? We go to HBCUs, but not just we go to HBCUs. What are we saying when we're at the HBCUs? How do we show up? Who shows up at the HBCUs?
00:04:22
Speaker
What do we need to show those students about the city of Milwaukee and everything like that? So that's really how my career got started. I was doing it, you know, as a stretch assignment on top of my day job. And there became a point when I realized I'm more passionate about the work I'm not getting paid to do than I am about the stuff that I am getting paid to do. And that's when I made.
00:04:47
Speaker
the decision to take that leap of faith and pursue a career in diversity and inclusion, which led me to NM and ultimately at Kohl's leading our DNI team. No, awesome. Awesome.
Leadership and Humility in Diversity
00:05:00
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And look, for once one, thanks for the introduction. As you was going through it, you said that the leadership came to you while you was on the program, right?
00:05:10
Speaker
And so, and I think this is important because one, you see the humility in coming to someone who is not necessarily in a leadership role, right? Not an executive, not leading a major function in the company, but coming to someone to where
00:05:28
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you want to get to know how can we do better. And I find that, you know, just just one, it shows humility, but at the same time, it shows that coming straight out the gate, not only did you have a skill set, but you were able to add value to DNI coming right out of the gate, you know, going into corporate America. So the image is when being when approached with that question.
00:05:51
Speaker
What was your mindset or what did you think as you were thinking through that question of how can we get more people like you? What do we need to do? What were you thinking about at that time when being asked that question? To be honest with you, that was, man, 12 years ago. But I think there's something that stands out to me that I think is really important for individuals now working in this space. And it was that the leaders that came to me, like you said, they were vulnerable. They were humble.
00:06:20
Speaker
but they wanted to listen and they started the conversation with saying, what you tell us, we're doing something with it. We're not just having this listening session
Action-Based Diversity Approaches
00:06:32
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or this give us all your grievances and all the problems and everything. We want to engage you, not just to tell us how to do it, but we want you to help us to do it. I went into it with a certain level of confidence that
00:06:48
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the ideas that I share, they're going to do something with them. So I think it's really important of how we position questions and going out and asking for help or thoughts from diverse employees, because a lot of times we're used to things not getting done, things not changing.
00:07:09
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us sharing our opinions and nothing happened with them. And so I give credit to the leadership at GE for setting the stage at the beginning of that meeting when they call me in to ask for my thoughts and my perspective that this wasn't just an hour long, you tell us something and then nothing happens with this. So I went in with, here's what I would have liked. You know, yeah, I ended up coming here, but
00:07:37
Speaker
Here's what was missing from my process. That's where I started. And it really was personal opinion. It really was. I wish that I would have had someone who really knew the parts of the city that apply more to me, my background when they gave me a tour, when they talked about places to live, you know? So I went into that meeting just really being real with them and telling them my experience.
00:08:05
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And together we were able to create a strategy around those gaps that we found, you know, based on what I had experienced.
00:08:13
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Oh, that's amazing.
3D Podcast Approach to Diversity
00:08:14
Speaker
And I love that you said the word action because that is, you know, what the 3D podcast is. And I want to take just a second because I didn't explain this, but when we think about 3D, right, you know, I've sat down and really, you know, went through a lot of the experiences, the discussions that I'm hearing and having with organizations and leaders. And what we saw was that when we look at those different dimensions of diversity, that first dimension is what we would say is good intent.
00:08:42
Speaker
So that could be your statement letters to the public. That could be letting the organization know that you're committed to doing this or that you see what's happening and you're going to put a focus on it. When you go into that second dimension, we see that as organizations move into not only good intent, but then now they're going to this place of let's do education and training. So unconscious bias training, sensitivity training, which I hate that word.
00:09:08
Speaker
and other resources to make sure that people are more aware. But then as you transition and what this podcast is about, that third dimension is, it's about taking action. And it's about making sure that everything that you're talking about, everything that you hope to have, it actually happens so that you are changing behaviors and ultimately changing the culture of your organization.
00:09:30
Speaker
So I love that you said they came to me in that 3D mindset to say, hey, what you're finna tell us, what you're finna say we're going to do, and we're going to take action. So I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah. So let's go a little bit deeper and let's get started kind of with the show and go from there.
00:09:50
Speaker
We're talking today about diversity and inclusion and more specifically your approach to developing a diversity and inclusion strategy. So to kick it off and dive a little bit deeper into the discussion, I'm always fascinated to hear the answer to this question when I speak with different professionals, practitioners in the space.
Diversity vs Inclusion
00:10:08
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So in your own words, can you explain to the audience what exactly is diversity and inclusion and why should people in organizations even care about it?
00:10:17
Speaker
My simple answer is I separate the two, diversity and inclusion because I think, and unfortunately now in this environment, people are using DNI interchangeably with race. It honestly is one of those, it's like one of those triggers for me. It is somewhat frustrating.
00:10:40
Speaker
So I like to try to separate the two components of when people talk about diversity and inclusion because diversity is just really referring to the different ways that we are different as a people, all those different dimensions. You know, we oftentimes talk about race or ethnicity, but that's just one dimension of diversity. Then you add in a sexual orientation, gender, all of those types of things that we can see.
00:11:06
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But then you add in all kinds of other stuff that you can't see, you know, your experience, your perspectives, where you went to school, where you grew up. And there's a ton of different dimensions of diversity at the end of the day, very often from a, I think, corporate DNI strategy standpoint.
00:11:23
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Diversity is really about representation, and that's the lens that we take to understand what does representation look like amongst these different dimensions of diversity. How many people do we have that represent this particular dimension? Where inclusion speaks to how those people feel.
Focus on Inclusion or Diversity First?
00:11:44
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That's where you get to well-being, belonging. What's the environment? What's the culture? Recently,
00:11:52
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I was talking with someone who's been a consultant in the DNI space for over 30 years. And we were going back and forth on where do you start? Do you start with diversity? Do you start with inclusion? Up until then, my mindset was you got to lead with inclusion because if you don't have inclusion, you can't attract the diversity. And his perspective, being in this space for 30 years, he said,
00:12:17
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Well, you can have inclusion, but if you don't have the diversity, all you're doing is including a whole bunch of people that look like you. Right. And I was like, I was like one of those like, you know, mind blowing moments. Cause I was like, that's true. You know, we always talk about companies having, you know, we have an inclusive culture and it's like, yeah, but inclusive to who?
00:12:38
Speaker
because you don't have a diverse representation here, then you are inclusive of other people who are just like you. So I just thought that was powerful that the way he said it, I mean, without diversity, inclusion really doesn't mean anything. It means you're including a bunch of people that look just like you, act like you have the same experiences and backgrounds like you. Oh man, I feel like I know him. That was my spirit talking.
00:13:07
Speaker
I'm with them. Like I've said that and mentioned that, but that's amazing that other people are seeing that same thing. And it's also, you think about it and you say, when you do start with inclusion and you're building these different programs, the question that you got to ask yourself is one, who am I building the programs for? And then two, why am I not including the people or groups that I'm building the programs for?
00:13:31
Speaker
Absolutely. And I mean, over the years of being in this space, I have a lot of colleagues and I would even say some really great friends who are, who have historically been what I would consider a DNI consultant. And I was actually talking to a girlfriend the other day and she said, I'm not taking on any clients right now that doesn't commit to doing culture work first.
The Business Case for Diversity
00:13:56
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I don't even want to have a conversation with them about diversity.
00:13:59
Speaker
until we're talking about the culture of the company, because you can do one without the other. If they're not looking to make a culture transformation, if they're not looking to talk about the environment and leadership behaviors and what this means to make the diversity piece work, then why are we doing this? Why are we having this conversation?
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, and that's interesting because as you're going in and actually getting that commitment, you know, from organizations to do this work, it brings them into piece this kind of next branch off of that, this next question of when organizations get that question, that thought, why should they care about this work? Like how?
00:14:36
Speaker
How's the impact to them? What is the impact to them? We say organizations that are more diverse have improvements to that bottom line by X percentage. We've seen the studies, we've seen everything that's going on, but why should they even care about all of this? I think there's definitely the business case. There's enough studies and data out there that show
00:14:57
Speaker
you know, the, the companies that go better as it relates to diverse representation, uh, have better overall company performance, uh, their bottom line and, and everything like that amongst their, their competitors. But I think the reality is, is asking this question of, are we doing this just because it's the right thing to do or because we're, we're making it make sense for our business. And that's different for every company.
00:15:25
Speaker
how it makes sense is the difference. So I think we all can agree like why it makes sense is how do we apply this to our particular business, our industry, the company, the culture and everything else. I think that's where a little bit of work comes into play. I also think right now where we're at is the if you don't
00:15:49
Speaker
is bigger than it's ever been, I think in the history of our country for sure. Meaning if you don't do this, you risk your associates not being engaged and leaving your company to go work for a different company.
00:16:02
Speaker
because this is important enough for them, particularly for your diverse associates, but not just your diverse associates. It's also important for allies who are very passionate about this matter that they work for a company that is standing up for what they believe is right. So you risk losing talent.
00:16:19
Speaker
you risk losing consumers and customers because buying behaviors are now more than ever based on how a company is showing up. What are they saying? What are their mission? What are their values? I think the why not is super important today and probably even more influential than I think the business case around why we should do it.
00:16:45
Speaker
No, I'm with you, I'm with you. And to make sure that when we're speaking and talking that we're capturing the events and everything that's happening today. If we do take a step back and we look at the current environment, but we see ourselves in today, we have a pandemic that's wreaking havoc through the country. You have unemployment that's skyrocketing to the two and over 30 plus million out of work and just social unrest with the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Atiana Jefferson, Erichard Brooks, just to name a few.
00:17:13
Speaker
What we're finding is that many companies are releasing these statements about their support for Black lives and the injustices that played the community. But my question is for you, you hit on it a little bit. But given all that's currently happening today, like how have you seen this actually affect the diversity and inclusion of work?
Impact of Recent Events on Diversity Strategies
00:17:30
Speaker
And based on what you're seeing, how has diversity and inclusion from a strategy perspective been impacted by these events? Because I can
00:17:38
Speaker
I have a sense of how, you know, how people could feel a little bit timid to approach it. But how have you seen these events impact the work today? There's a couple of things I would say. One of the things we mentioned earlier in the call that vulnerability piece. I've not seen anything like this in terms of the number of senior leaders who are being vulnerable and saying, I don't know what to do.
00:18:07
Speaker
I'm uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. I don't have the answers. This is not something that I can just fix and make go away. Please help me. And I think that is because of all those things that you mentioned because of the environment, the pandemic, everything that's happening right now. I think it's unlocked this additional level of vulnerability that we really need to be able to have the right conversations to do this type of work. And I think that's the good part of it. I don't want to say bad, but the part that I think is challenging
00:18:37
Speaker
it's like just jumping right in, you know, and, and, and to the tune of moving so fast and fast tracking everything around diversity and inclusion that they aren't really taking the time to kind of assess, right. And, and, um, taking that time to even be
00:19:01
Speaker
introspective to think about where they are on their own personal journey. How do they show up? What blind spots do they have? You know, skip past that stage and just let's jump to check in the box. What can we do? So I think the increase in visibility that's happened as a result of everything going on is very good. And you have very well-intentioned leaders and allies. I think the downside in what I'm seeing is that people are responding to this as if it's a moment.
00:19:31
Speaker
and not a movement, right? People are acting as if we can put together five bullet points of the things that we're going to do, and then now that's done, let's move on. We are clearly showing that that is not what's going to happen. At least three or four different cross industry, cross company, diversity and inclusion, you know, CDO, leader type of calls every week.
00:19:59
Speaker
with people from different companies wanting to talk about what are you doing? What are you doing? And it's great because everybody's sharing best practices. People are helping each other, but it's just like, we weren't doing this before, not at this level. I think it's great. The visibility is great. The intentions are great. I think it's just, everyone is not really stopping to assess and create a full blown strategy.
00:20:26
Speaker
before they just start doing stuff. So let me ask you this because outside of, and even to the point of the virus and the pandemic, some of the other events that have happened, this isn't the first time they've happened.
COVID-19 and Reflective Diversity Efforts
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah. And so what have you seen as like, what's been the difference about this time than all the other times we've gone through this?
00:20:48
Speaker
For me, I think is the fact that people had to be still. I think it's the events with the pandemic, right? So before I'm living my life, I'm taking care of my kids, I'm doing whatever I'm doing on the weekends, I'm focusing on work, I'm doing all of these things. Whereas this time, because we were
00:21:10
Speaker
like at home, sheltering in place. And we were in a state of not having the most of us, hopefully, we're not having the social engagements and things like that that we would normally have. We were we had to be still and being still is uncomfortable for people. And I think that's what made this different because you couldn't just wait for the next thing to pop up on the news. There wasn't any news because we weren't doing anything.
00:21:37
Speaker
So you had to keep seeing these stories and keep seeing these social media posts and keep talking about these things. It didn't just go away with the news cycle because we were all being somewhat still. And I think for some individuals and I think individuals in very high leadership roles and companies, I think it caused them to be a little more reflective than maybe they had allowed themselves to be in the past.
00:22:06
Speaker
And that's where you get this increased visibility and desire to do something and to make sure that this isn't like all the times in the past that these things have happened.
00:22:17
Speaker
No, I agree. Look, distraction is powerful. And I think that it kind of shows how much distraction we had around us to be able just to simply move to the next thing when so many of these events have happened in the past as an organization individually, just whatever it may be, just moving on as if it didn't happen and not really addressing it. But I love that moment of you had to be still, right? I love that statement there. As we go a little bit deeper and really to dig into this and you've
00:22:45
Speaker
mention organizations is jumping right into it and trying to trying to do things and trying to get stuff done as a follow up to my last question. How should companies either how should they approach it when it is starting a journey from scratch.
Assessing Culture and Resources for Diversity
00:23:01
Speaker
or doing a complete overhaul, given the current environment and pandemic and unemployment and social rest that we're in, like we know and we feel that is different. But how should they how should they now like what should they be doing to get this thing going and where should they be looking at as far as kind of the first couple of steps in this process? You know, I think I don't know that there's a one right answer to this, you know, something that they have to do.
00:23:28
Speaker
But I think before jumping to any actions, they have to assess where they are. What are the things that are standing out as the opportunities for them or the gaps, the things that they really need to address first. And typically.
00:23:44
Speaker
somehow that gets to culture. Even if you have a company that has scored super high on your culture surveys and everybody loves working there and everything else, when you dig a little deeper, like you said, right, when you really start pulling the layers back and you get into that, there's likely some aspect of that culture that has either prevented you from acquiring diverse talent,
00:24:10
Speaker
or keeping diverse talent or allowing the diverse talent that you have to thrive, accelerate, and grow in their career. The first thing, whether it's a company that is just getting started or they're looking to overhaul whatever they've had in the past, I think the first thing has to be an assessment.
00:24:30
Speaker
Even if you're bringing in external consultants, that's the first thing that they're going to do. They're going to ask you a lot of questions about, you know, your current state, what's been going on and all of that to understand where you are and what makes sense for next steps based on where you are on your DNI journey. And I think a lot of people, you know, like I said, on these calls and these different things I've been sitting on, I think people forget
00:24:59
Speaker
that you can't benchmark against a company who's been evolving their diversity and inclusion strategy for 25 years when you're just getting started. Because your strategy will not and should not look just like there. And so I think that for me is probably what my advice would be to anybody looking to get started is to really assess where you are and then start looking for
00:25:23
Speaker
For companies, if you want to benchmark and start to look for ideas that apply to where you are on your journey. I really like that. Taking the current state, really digging into what are those barriers? What are those reasons why we haven't been able to move forward?
00:25:39
Speaker
It is definitely something that has to be looked at. In some cases, and I don't know if you've seen this, it can appear that sometimes, and I think that over the last couple of months, it almost felt as if companies were forcefully putting out statements as if they didn't want to be the one who didn't versus really understanding why are you putting this out
00:26:01
Speaker
Are you committed? And then what are you going to do after this gets put out? Did you see anything different or how did you see when all these different statements, I mean, I saw letters and I saw numbers getting thrown around to these different communities that I was like, oh, you have that much money?
00:26:18
Speaker
to put into this. What happens when the next thing comes and now you don't have any budget because you threw all your money at one? Yes, I saw that too. It's a mess. I think that to be honest, what stood out for me the most was when companies put out statements that didn't reflect who they were as a company.
00:26:44
Speaker
I think the most impactful statements were ones where the voice matched the voice of the company, right? So if they typically had social media posts that were kind of snappy and, and, you know, had a kind of, not that this was a funny topic, but if they, if that's just what their voice was and their statement reflected that if their platform is
00:27:09
Speaker
education, then that means their statement needed to tie this back to education because that's who they were as a company. So those were the ones to me that were impactful. They made sense. They had action tied to it. And you could see that they really put effort behind the statement to be reflective of who they were as a company as opposed to we got to do it because if we don't, we'll look bad.
00:27:34
Speaker
No, no, definitely to kind of branch out for that. What's the impact of that? Like long-term, short-term, if you go out and you
Impact of Insincere Corporate Diversity Statements
00:27:42
Speaker
put a statement and nothing else about the organization, I love when you said voice, nothing else about the voice of the organization really supported the statement that you just put out. How does that impact culture? How does that impact employees? And just overall, even if you weren't doing DNI work and you wanted to do it, like how is that going to affect that at this point now?
00:28:04
Speaker
I feel like this isn't just a race thing or dealing with racial justice.
00:28:12
Speaker
Um, right now, I think it's even a generational thing. I think Gen Z these, you know, we've done some sessions with our interns this summer and these students, these kids, like they are bold. They speak their mind. They were asking the most just intuitive, thoughtful questions and not asking more like demanding.
00:28:34
Speaker
You know, like, why don't you have you should have this? And what about this? And I think that just goes to say that if companies don't take the time to get this right, to get not just the statements right, but the strategy behind it and what they're doing, you're talking about a generation that's coming into the workplace who's not going to settle for working at a company just because they have a good paycheck. And so I think the big repercussion is losing talent.
00:29:04
Speaker
losing top talent where employee engagement goes down and you start to lose talent. Then I think that the secondary part of that is sales, consumer opinion, and people not wanting to be involved with your company and the repercussions of potential social media campaigns and the backlash, not because of the statement. I think that's
00:29:32
Speaker
what people didn't understand is because of the lack of action or authenticity behind the statement. Yeah, and I can only imagine in those organizations that didn't have the historical pieces to support that statement, when the statement was released, I can only imagine how the employees in the organization looked at that statement. Man. Because they could immediately say, oh, oh really?
00:30:00
Speaker
The internal, whatever their chat feature, internal was like off the chain. They were going, everybody was sending internal messages back and forth with all of those companies. Like, can you believe this? Like, I'm sure. And even when you talk about the generation Z, look, I've even heard the statements of, look, I'm not my parents, you know, and that right there already lets you know that, you know, this is, this is going to be a little bit different because I think that the expectation is now turning towards
00:30:29
Speaker
I'm coming to work for you, whether that's eight to four, nine to five, or whatever it may be. But then when I get off work, I'm going downtown to Black Lives Plaza. And we finna go and we finna have some discussion. Now, if you wanna join, you can. But I'm letting you know that if you see me on TV, that this is where I'm gonna be at. And so- And I'm not asking you for permission. I'm telling you that this is what I'm going to go do.
00:30:55
Speaker
Exactly. And I think that's been like that, that corporate mentality, because I think that to a larger extent, how you acted kind of your corporate life bridge so much to change how you act in your personal life to where it was like a double S or you could feel that I have to do certain things externally, because I don't want it, you know, to affect my job. And it now seems that
00:31:16
Speaker
That's less of a factor when it comes to the social unrest and what people are seeing right now to where it's like, look, I do my job. I do a great job at what I do. But then at the same time, you now start to dig into this. This is who I am. Right. This is this is me. It brings about this thought. And I love to get your input on this as it relates to authenticity in the
Authenticity in Corporate Environments
00:31:41
Speaker
workplace.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah. And when you think about bringing your full self to work or even just being your full self, no matter where you are, speak a little bit about that and your, your perspective on it, because that right now seems like we're in a shift to where we're not flipping that button. We're one person inside of an organization.
00:32:02
Speaker
And there was someone else when we leave. But I'd love to get your input on that authenticity and what that's going to mean for organizations as they continue to move forward with the events and everything that's happening right now. I mean, you hit on so many points there. And I think the good thing is, right, like there's these terms and now we're talking about code switching and things like that.
00:32:25
Speaker
There's more conversation out there about it. Even this week, I've been in conversations where we were talking about the studies that show that people who are able to be their authentic self, they're more productive. If I come to work and I'm covering or I'm thinking about, I can't share this about myself or I can't do this or I have to be mindful of all that, it's taken away the brain capacity for me to be able to perform.
00:32:52
Speaker
at the maximum, maximum level of my, that I could for my role. So I think companies are starting to see and hear more, you know, statistics and statistics are always great because they, you know, get the attention of your leaders. But where I think there's still so much to unlock is, is kind of goes back to that, what I said in the beginning about us not being monolithic. Our experiences aren't either inside of a corporate company.
00:33:19
Speaker
And that's been my realization. It's been a few years ago that like for me personally, I decided that if I could not show up and be my full self, a professional self, but still being my full authentic self, then I didn't want to be at that company. And I made a personal commitment and decision to make sure that I showed up that way and told people around me, if you see that I am not, feel free to check me.
00:33:46
Speaker
right? That's not where everyone is on their journey. And so I even went into some sessions with associates for them to speak up and to say different things and they did it. And I'm like, well, why aren't people, you know, speaking up or talking about whatever? And it's because everyone hasn't necessarily had that talk that I had with myself looking in the mirror and making that decision that that's how I was going to show up every day.
00:34:14
Speaker
And so I think we have to create environment and spaces for people to do that, but understand that's, that's like a personal thing. That's a personal journey. That's a, it's not just about the company creating that space. It's about you as an individual also deciding that you will no longer code switch or you will no longer cover or that whoever you see as being your authentic self is who you're going to bring to work every day.
00:34:44
Speaker
So it was kind of a realization for me that people respond and react to me different in corporate environments because I've looked in the mirror and had that conversation with myself and how I show up. The next person, another black woman, may not get that same response or reaction from people because of
00:35:07
Speaker
where she might be on her own personal journey about how she shows up to work and how she brings her full stuff to work. So I think we just have to be mindful that it's not just about the companies. This concept is something that we've talked about in other areas, but I think it applies to this. It's like this intrinsic right. Like, how do you give people
00:35:29
Speaker
How do you help individuals to feel like they have the permission to go through that journey and process themselves as an individual so that they can show up that way? So I think that's another perspective. It's not just about the company, it's about us as individuals too.
00:35:45
Speaker
No, look, and I think you hit it, man. That's that's right on point, because whether you show up and be your authentic self or let's say you don't, it's about do I have the choice and do I have the option to do that right and not be looked at in any different way?
00:36:02
Speaker
Once that does take place and also it brings into this this notion that it sounds I mean this sounds like for you that and I can only assume here is that it focus more on I Need to make myself feel better versus making someone else feel better about themselves when I'm in the room. Yep. I
00:36:24
Speaker
And that's that covering, right, that we see that cold switch, right? And it's something that's almost ingrained that you have to do it in corporate when, you know, like I say, we're transitioning into a new environment, a new space to where that might not be the way of how we're going to do work, right? We talk about the future of work. It's not all about technology. It's about how people actually get work done and how they show up in those situations.
00:36:47
Speaker
I think we need to, I need to bring it to diversity and inclusion of future work. I think that's huge. You know, is, is we say it all the time is like the buzz word or the buzz phrase of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yeah. But it's real. Like that's the, that's the idea is, and going back to being still,
00:37:09
Speaker
You need to be able to be in a meeting and you know, this is like the message to your leaders, right? You need to be able to be in a meeting and sit still in the uncomfortable feeling that you might have when a, you know, when someone shows up a certain way that is their authentic self. And it may not feel good. Maybe a little uncomfortable to you. You may not know how to respond or what to say, but that's your problem. Not theirs. Oh.
00:37:38
Speaker
That's the real talk. That's what getting comfortable with being uncomfortable means. That's the permission that you give to allow people to be their authentic self. Then, like you said, now that you've given that person that, then it's up to them to go to do the work to figure out who that is for me and how do I ensure that I'm showing up that way. But that's the real talk conversation you have to have with leaders because that's not comfortable for them.
00:38:04
Speaker
it's not, especially when you got so many different generations and you know, a lot of leadership that had a specific way of doing things and now that may not be the way in order for us to keep growing and keep going down this path. And so, you know, as we come kind of towards the end,
Driving Change in Diversity Practices
00:38:20
Speaker
We've talked about a lot of different things here. And for anyone who's listening, the average DNI practitioner, someone, you know, it's where they might not have DNI specific function in the organization, but they're trying to just do things to move this forward. If you could give kind of two to three specific actions that they could, you know, once they finish this into this episode, they can go out and start taking action on those two or three things. What would you give them as actions coming out of this?
00:38:48
Speaker
I think the first step is to either allocate resources if you are in the position to do so, or request slash demand resources. Oh, demand demand. Yeah, like, okay. I must say demand because I'm sure you've seen this. Hey, you're, I mean, you're said diverse person, you know, you're diverse here, you do this, take this.
00:39:16
Speaker
And then we all take our hands off of it. We wait for that person to come back and tell us what to do. And now you have one person who is trying to figure out and manage something that should be really at the highest level of an organization. Like your CEO should be involved.
00:39:34
Speaker
right in something in diversity and inclusion. So I think allocating resources is probably the first step because the answer that you get to that question about resources is pretty indicative to the success, the buy-in and the support that you're going to have in this work in the first place.
00:39:54
Speaker
Before you get your hopes up and get all these grandiose ideas and everything else, I really think one of the first key actions is to understand the resource allocation, not just from a monetary standpoint and budget, but from people. In what level in the organization is this work going to sit?
00:40:18
Speaker
And then I think for me, the next step is identifying the key partners, understanding who are the stakeholders going to be, who are going to be the people with what I call the seats at the table, who are going to be the people that can be advocates and speak up and be champions and challenge things. One of the biggest ahas for me in this space was I had assumed that certain people were allies and I realized that they didn't have the power to be an ally.
00:40:48
Speaker
just because they looked like an ally. If they're in a meeting and they don't feel confident to speak up or to challenge what's going on and what's being said, then they really can't be an ally. Talk your stuff. I mean, it's real talk. So you got to understand who are your key partners and people who can really help drive decisions and not just the decisions, but challenge
00:41:12
Speaker
when the wrong decisions are being made because we're going to make wrong ones and people are going to go down different paths, write a wrong reason or whatever else. But you need people in the room with seats at the table who are confident enough in lending their voice to this strategy and this cause. And just because someone looks a certain way does not mean that they're confident in doing that. And then the last one I think is just creating some type of framework. And we like the alliterations and the
00:41:41
Speaker
you know, four C's, two P's, whatever it is. And that type of stuff is not so much about that, but it's, it's to ground you in the work because, and you know this, like we've been on different calls and you start down one path and you land someplace completely different as it relates to diversity and inclusion, because there's so many different things, so many different paths you can go down. So creating that framework.
00:42:07
Speaker
and really understanding what are the key priorities and building your framework around what that means for your company, then that's where you can go. Now we can assess. Now we can benchmark. Now we can do everything. We can build off of that, but you've got to start with this framework that will kind of center us and keep us grounded on what we're going to focus on.
00:42:29
Speaker
No, awesome. Awesome. Thanks for that. Thanks for that. Look, I think we could go on talking about this all day, right? This is something that, you know, it's a lot of stuff that's happening right now that there's a lot of conversation. We got Kamala Harris in the runners now. I just want to put that out there. We just want to slip that in. But look, this has been an amazing conversation. Before we go, any shout outs or parting words for the audience?
00:42:53
Speaker
You know what? I would just say, I think that this is a time and a space that all of us that are DNI practitioners really need to stick together and continue to talk more about us. And I say that selfishly because I think, like I said, I'm on calls all week, all day, and we're talking about the work that we're doing. But the reality is this is exhausting. This can be traumatizing. This can be a lot and heavy.
00:43:19
Speaker
And so you got to find your network, your circle, your village, whatever you want to call it. But I think that's, that's kind of my parting, parting thing is words and thoughts is like, we really need to stick together and be able to connect and reach out not to talk about, you know, the best practices, but like, how are you doing, sis? Like, how are you today?
00:43:38
Speaker
because this work is exhausting.
Support Networks for Diversity Practitioners
00:43:41
Speaker
So I appreciate having people like you, you know, we can send the texts and be like, do you know what? Just like, you know, we need that. And so I encourage people to find those people that you can be real with, you can be transparent with, because this work, it's a lot. It is a lot right now, especially.
00:44:01
Speaker
Look, it is, it is. And I'm gonna tell you like this, if you put your hands to it and you go down this path, right? Look, don't let up. Don't give up, don't let up because like generations out there, it's depending on this work that we're doing today. So Lydia, before we go, look, where can people find you if they would like to dive deeper into your thoughts on this topic? The best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn right now. So it's Lydia Smith, MBA. I'm out there. I'm happy to connect, happy to talk and definitely continue to network and talk about
00:44:31
Speaker
the work going on in this space.
00:44:33
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 want to 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.
00:45:02
Speaker
You'll receive content straight to your phone on a regular basis, and you can message back and forth with me. 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 have been listening to the 3D Podcast. We out.