Real-World Strategies to Build Authentic, Inclusive Workplaces That Reflect Our World, Not Our Biases

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And welcome to today’s webinar, Real-World Strategies to Build Authentic, Inclusive Workplaces That Reflect Our World, Not Our Biases.

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Let’s invite you to HRDQ-U and presented by Devin Hughes.

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My name is Sarah, and I will moderate today’s webinar. The webinar will last around one hour. If you have any questions, please type them into the question area on your GoToWebinar control panel, and we’ll answer as many as we can during today’s session.

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Today’s webinar is sponsored by HRDQ-U Virtual Seminars, HRDQ-U virtual seminars, for engaging soft skills training classes, with real-time interaction and expert trainers.

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Enroll your organization’s learners in HRDQ-U virtual seminars and let them develop the performance skills that they need from their home or office.

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And on any device, from desktop to mobile, learn more at www.hrdqu.com/virtualseminars.

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Our presenter, today, is Devin Hughes. Devin is an author, speaker consultant, executive coach, an internationally recognized expert in the science of happiness, organizational, and cultural change, and leadership development.

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He has lectured and worked with a variety of Fortune 100 companies, as well as The Secret Service, the IRS, and an assortment of profit and non-profit organizations.

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Kevin is the author of 20 books and has lectured in more than 15 countries. He lives in San Diego, California with his wife, four daughters and to rescue dogs. Thank you for joining us today, Devin.

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Thanks for having me. I’m super excited here. I actually turn on my camera. Hopefully, everybody can see me OK, as I put up my hands, and wave at the crowd, like, you just don’t care.

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All right, super excited to be here today. A little bit about me, I spend 99.9% of my time on workplace culture.

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My niche is diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

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I’m gonna give you a little bit of some things to think about. A little bit of science and some tools. We’re going to move briskly. Now, my background is in positive psychology.

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If you are familiar with it, fantastic! If you’re not, that’s OK, too.

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Essentially, what that means is I study how human beings flourish.

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And if I don’t know you that, well now, two minutes in, but I imagine the flourishing in the new execs, let’s call it the next normal would probably kind of disorder be a good thing.

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That aside, today’s a big day. I don’t know if you knew it or not. There is always a big day, but today’s, especially a big day, ladies and gentlemen, it will be Wednesday, yes, indeed, its well-being Wednesday.

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So, what I’d like you to do, I’d like you to think about the best thing that has happened this week in your world. Because if we’re not thinking about it, curate it. Talking about it’s like it doesn’t exist.

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So, in the questions, Q, what’s the best thing that’s happened to you this week?

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I’ll give you a minute or so to type it out. For me, it was the best thing that’s happened this week enough, Sarah shared them aloud.

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Yes, you can type those responses into the questions box, and we can share some of the responses that come through.

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Lisa said she woke up happy and healthy.

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Boom, I love that, Lisa.

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What else spoke?

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It’s the best thing that’s happened this week.

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Paula says that, that she connected with a co-worker.

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That’s always important and we have Nancy who spent some time with her sister and friends at the pool. That sounds wonderful.

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With the heatwave going around the US, the pool would be, must have.

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And then we also have we have some other comments coming through. Katherine had dinner at a restaurant with a former co-worker and friend.

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Allie Allene said, my husband loves me, Brian said was able to help a friend who just broke his leg.

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Wow, I love that. So, we’re going to talk about that today, because, again, how you start your day is how often you end your day.

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So, congratulations on well-being Wednesday, but that aside, I welcome all people.

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We are talking about inclusion; I welcome all the collective view.

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Identities, intuition, spirit, diversity of thought, physical bodies, like relationships and emotions. So, thank you for joining me today.

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When I look at organizational culture, little Hard to Read, kinda sorta hope not when I look when I go into an organization, I DC I call them the five Ps to embed DEI people, place, product, process, and purpose.

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Now, we’ll kinda touch on couple of these today, but that just gives you a frame.

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Now, that aside, five beliefs to make your workplace inclusion efforts, letss talk, and more walk, let me say that again, five beliefs to make your workplace, inclusion efforts less talk and more walk.

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Each person must feel that they can bring their authentic and best selves to work, and that requires affiliate in our sense of belonging.

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We’ll talk about that; how do you create a culture where people feel like they belong.

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Second, hiring certainly can boost diversity numbers. We can bring in lots of groups of people.

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But that won’t automatically create an inclusive culture.

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They’re bringing in divers’ numbers, is fantastic. But what do we do when they get there?

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three, inclusion is an ongoing practice.

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It’s not a training, a vet, I find this over and over.

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It’s fantastic that you did unconscious bias training. That’s not enough. The culture was not built in a day, and it usually does not pivot in a day.

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Diversity, equity inclusion efforts should be designed to minimize to maximize connection and minimize fear. We’ll talk about that a little bit today as well.

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And I feel strongly about this average and fit our notions of the past.

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Systems of the future will focus on helping individuals thrive, and if you haven’t noticed, there was quite a bit of debate right now.

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In the work sphere about whether or not us, meaning me, you, and our colleagues, should have to go back to work.

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Can I go, do I have to go full-time, hybrid, remote?

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All of that, talking about making a workplace where human beings can thrive. Well, what is thriving look like in the next normal?

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Depending on who you work for, it could mean very different things.

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Now, we hear a lot about the new normal.

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We do hear a lot about the new normal. I’ve heard it over, and over, and over.

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So, my question to you is, Is this possible in the questions queue?

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Is that a yes or no, And I want you to be completely candid.

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Is it possible to love your job yes, or no?

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Vendor Y, I’m just curious what you think?

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We have some yeses coming through.

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Seems like the overall consensus is yes, and we have some more further comments on that. Nancy says, yes if you’re connected to it. And Nathan says, it’s absolutely possible to love your job and your line of work.

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All right. Well, did you know? It’s coming?

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Interest in Sarah and look at this crowd we have here today.

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Love that.

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I will do you know, ladies and gentlemen, ladies, gentlemen, and people that there’s only one culture on the planet that has a word that says I love work.

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There’s only one culture on the planet. The planet I’m referring to is Earth.

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If there is no word for it, what does that suggest about the concept?

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one might surmise that it doesn’t exist.

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If we don’t have a word for it in our lexicon, if you don’t believe me, have you ever seen how happy people are on Fridays?

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Most people think happiness is live in work.

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Or have you seen how happy people are when they retire because they think that is loving it.

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Here is the word, it’s … good.

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It’s from the Nordic countries.

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They actually, the only culture on the planet that can find actually has a word. So, part of the reason why so many folks struggle at work.

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It’s not that we have this bad people or even bad bosses in many cases.

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Even bigger than that, we just don’t even have a belief system as part of our lexicon that we even think. It’s a social norm.

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Love it where, but based on this group’s response, it is possible.

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But when we talk about the new normal, we get a little bit of this, and I’m not picking sides.

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I’m just giving you context. There’s a lot of still angst in the system.

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So, we don’t have work brains in home brains.

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We’ve got one brain and it’s not always so easy to be the best version of ourselves.

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So, I did my three word check in today.

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Well, where my headspace is. I do it every single day.

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Checking in on myself, a temperature check, emotional temperature check I wrote in my journal that I am hopeful.

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I’m feeling hopeful right now, today in Andover about 2021.

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So, I asked you, what would you say you’re feeling right now? I am what you are. What about Nick in the questions Q?

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I’m hopeful. How about you? What do you feel?

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And you can type your response into the questions field, so we can share some of your responses.

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Optimistic, so we have two people so far. That’s optimistic.

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Not sure about future projects, Nathan’s great fall.

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Sydney is exhausted.

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Brian is cautiously optimistic.

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Paula isn’t motivated. Courtney is restless.

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Candy’s hopeful relaxed and great fall.

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We have a few people here who are happy, and Courtney said that she’s also anxious.

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Got it. All right, so I wonder, how often do you check in with yourself?

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And how often do you check in with the folks that you work with?

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You want to be more inclusive.

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Do you ask? If you don’t ask one might infer you don’t care.

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Just think about it.

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Now, that aside, I’m also not tone deaf to what’s going on.

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Did you know there’s a parallel epidemic, IE pandemic got more lonely adults We’ve had in the history of the country right now.

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Does that surprise you?

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Says former, but he’s actually current surgeon general right now.

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It’s so ubiquitous.

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It’s so pervasive right now that we’ve got a lot of folks that are struggling right now, but it’s not just here.

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In the UK, they have a minister of loneliness.

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A minister of loneliness thinks about that someone in government, in the UK.

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I noticed this one I was in the UK before coven.

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This is called a chat bench.

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It’s a bench in a park, with a sign that encourages human beings to talk to each other.

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Is that where we are?

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Is that where we are, ladies and gentlemen, that I need signs in parks?

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To encourage human beings to talk to each other?

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It’s not just here, though.

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In Japan, it’s estimated, 30,000 people die, a year for loneliness, even have a word for it if they had a word that would clearly suggest that it happens quite often.

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This is context for our discussion. When we talk about creating a more inclusive workplace, it kinda sorta need to know where we are in the next normal.

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Now, I notice this, it’s so ubiquitous in Japan that you can hire fake friends and family to hang out with you.

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Think about that for a second. You have to hire fake friends and family, but, you know, as I’m looking at this research, 65% of Americans spend more time with their computers than with their spouses.

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Ouch.

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Yes, that’s a collective ouch.

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So, beyond Netflix, why are so many folks struggling right now?

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What are your thoughts in the next normal?

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What’s going on with the loneliness epidemic?

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What’s causing it?

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Your thoughts on that. What are you seeing? What are you hearing in your personal and professional relationships? Please do share. I’d love to hear.

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It’s just an isolated act.

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Yeah.

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Everything is so polarized. Pause it, screens versus in person.

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Nathan’s at too much self-focus.

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Catherine said, the inability to establish authentic human connection is it’s made worse by social media and devices.

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Yeah.

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We also have some comments coming through, as well. Brian said, we’re relying too much connecting on social media, Facebook, and Instagram. And then Ali said, no one to physically touch or talk to face-to-face.

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Got it.

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Yeah. I mean, I think all of you just nailed it. It’s a collective sense of angst globally right now.

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We’re all kind of sort of feeling it.

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Now, if you look at the research, which is where I spend a lot of time, and the research from Harvard, I was told you have to say it like that.

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Sarah, Harvard, when you look at the research on well-being and happiness, the, If you look at the unpack it, it was not fame, It was not fortune and it was not hard work.

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Having social connections is far better for our health and well-being than anything else.

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It’s not the number of connections it’s the high quality or closeness of the connections, it wasn’t only good for our bodies but also our brains and to your point, folks, you just articulated so nicely that it’s been exacerbated during this time.

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Will your holidays a little bit different this past year than normal years, probably?

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Maybe you didn’t have, maybe they were a little smaller. Maybe they were a little socially distant, maybe all of the above.

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But the things that bring us together didn’t happen, and you wonder why folks are struggling. And this is very important for you to know in terms of create an inclusive environment.

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Relationships social connections are the number-one determinant of getting people to a better place.

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So that aside, enough preaching for me, I think we get it.

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But if you could sit and talk with anyone on this bench for an hour, who could use a pick me up Some words of affirmation, I believe in you, I appreciate you.

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Could even be, I love you. I miss you.

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I need, you, keep going, and you’re doing a great job, maybe someone who’s struggling.

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Who would it be?

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If you would mind sharing who could use some words right now, evaporation person, would you pick?

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If you don’t mind sharing, that’d be awesome.

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We have, we have a few people saying my mother.

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Nancy sets, my Stepson, that’s my maternal grandmother.

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Catherine said, my sister.

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Corey said, I’d love to sit with someone who’s been unemployed is since the start of the pandemic last March.

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And Brian said, my sister. Who is my biggest cheerleader?

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Wow, Sarah.

16:11

Did anybody say me, OK?

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Is it awkward now? I just, oh, I don’t mind me, everybody, I’m just silly. That way also identified some people.

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Well, guess what?

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Guess what? What I want you to do now is, I want you to grab your device.

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That would be a phone and now you all have one or maybe even the computer you’re on or iPad.

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I want you to send that person an e-mail or text.

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Right now, let them know that you’re thinking about it, that you love them, that you appreciate it.

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Whoever that person was that just came to mind, we’re going to create a little space right now and I want you to let them know, because that’s what I find.

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If you don’t let them know now, when do you plan to do it, and if not, you, then who?

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Then, one way you can continue to support people create a more inclusive environment, is create a little space every single day to let those people know that they’re not alone, that they matter.

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Doesn’t help, doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t take too long to 1- or 2-minute attempts to let another human being know that you’re thinking about.

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And in the spirit of that, I’m going to deal with you.

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Give it another minute.

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All right, fantastic. For those of you that are wondering, I do that every day.

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I think about someone, again, who I could check in on.

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Let them know.

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the world needs more positive genius, willing to come around and let people know they matter.

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I don’t know about you, and I don’t know, your demographic, or your age, your experience. I’ve never seen a world that is polarized as it is right now.

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And anything that you can do to book, infuse hope, inspiration, love, and the system.

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I think I think it helps us all.

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Another reason it’s good, it’s called self-care.

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Right?

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Makes this, makes me feel better when I’m helping other people, because I tend to find that we care more about our cell phone batteries, and we care about our own self-care.

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If you don’t believe me, have you ever seen the level of urgency of someone who can’t find a charger?

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Yeah.

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What if we had the same level of urgency about our own self care?

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Because, what I find you cannot pour from an empty cup.

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You cannot pour from an empty cup.

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If I say to all of you, do you think you perform better when you feel better, would you agree with that statement?

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For this statement, though, you’re, at your best, when you feel your best, would you agree with that statement? I would imagine that you probably would.

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So, if that’s the case, yourself care taking care of yourself is a superpower, that’s self-indulgent.

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Because how are you going to take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself?

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And so I ask you, right now, what is in your cup?

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What is in your cup?

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What are you doing more intentionally in terms of your self-care?

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If we want to help other people feel that more comfortable starts with you first.

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And so again, I’m going to ask you what have you done during the pandemic to fill your cup?

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What are you doing right now?

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I’d love to hear it. Please share it, if you would.

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We have a daily meditation slash devotion exercise.

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We have gardening and getting my flowers away.

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Walking more to explore nature.

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Working out at the gym every day for an hour to get the endorphins going.

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Reaching out to others, an exercise, walk, run, or workout daily, and getting rid of TV, church, gardening, spending time with friends.

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All fantastic stuff, and I’m not getting political here. I’m not picking size.

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I like Switzerland on neutral.

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But I do spend time in the data, and I gather lots of data.

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And so felt she says, and again and again, maybe right, the things may not be back to normal to the end of this year.

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The way that delta variants, supposedly spreading. Again, I don’t know, I’m vaccinated my word, no, but things are still a little bit, and my kids are gonna go back to school, maybe, I don’t know.

21:19

Things are lot of moving parts.

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So, I couldn’t political foes. I’m just gonna put things in context for it, so having a full cup kinda sorta matters.

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So, ask you here, Big four domains that you may consider and having a full cup.

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You’re moving your body every day. What are you consuming? What are you eating when you’re doing to invest in your personal relationships? What do you do until alleviates stress?

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Why does it matter? Because 50% of your well-being is in your genes.

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You inherited it from Mom and Dad.

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Yes. There is such thing as a happiness set point. We all have one, 10% are circumstances.

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40% are things that you can do to fill your cup, exactly what I said. You can fill your cup.

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Some of the happiest people on the planet, the most resilient people on the planet, weren’t necessarily born that way. They’re just very intentional about filling their cup.

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So, I’m going to unleash today on all of you a 30 day well-being challenge. I should call this the 30 day, Fill your Cup challenge.

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Here were five research-based ways that you can start to be the best version of you.

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Whether that’s writing down three different things you’re grateful for every single day, so your brain starts to scan for positive things in the world. Not just negative. Journaling. Very similar to a gratitude practice. Look for one positive experience each day, and you journal about the experience. When you journal about it, you get to relive it.

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Exercise for 15 minutes a day at a minimum.

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Meditate for two minutes a day, or a conscience, like the kindness.

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Like I just had you do, by the way, right, as simple as writing a one positive e-mail or text to someone each day or do something else kind.

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I imagine maybe some of you have already gotten a response back from that text or e-mail.

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If you have, I’d love to hear. Is it OK? Is it go over? Well? Could we do more of it? These are things you can do to fill your cup and fill other people’s cups. You want to be more inclusive leader. You cannot, you must not discount well-being.

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Otherwise, you appear tone deaf. There’s a lot of folks struggling.

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I need more substance than Domino’s Pizza at a high five.

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Meet me where I am emotionally, ladies and gentlemen. So, we’re gonna have a little practice.

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We’re gonna start today, right now.

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What are you actually grateful for during this pandemic?

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Anybody?

23:39

What are you actually grateful for during the pandemic?

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My family.

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They can get there.

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My Keynote was an essential worker, Nathan’s grateful to have my family and didn’t have to spend it.

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Brian said, spending more time with my son, Landsat spending more time reading Margaux as well for her family, health, and job.

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I was able to continue working my employer, my partner, and my grandchildren family, friends, health, ability to work for more time to create my family, a big yard.

24:24

Well, that’s fantastic. Sarah, did anybody read my name?

24:28

Know, your name, yeah. Yeah, let’s keep asking here. I’m just gonna keep asking, all. Right, so even though we’re in the midst of a …, you can find things to be grateful for.

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So, think about it. Folks. Well, I’m going to offer up a tool.

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This is my five Things Gratitude Tool use. It probably surprised Sarah at this threw that in there because I want to help you spread it to others.

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If you send us an e-mail at info at … dot com, we’ll send you this tool.

24:57

Sarah, remind me, also get this tool to you. You can download it however you want, It will get it to you.

25:01

But this is a tool for you to use and for you to share with others, because it’s really hard to help people if you don’t have a tool, and this is one way that I’m willing to share it with you. All right, so that’s the well-being. Now, how do we pivot? What’s next? Well, we’re at work, how do we create a more inclusive environment?

25:17

I’m going to suggest going for the …

25:19

to be mindful that employees or co-workers need both recognition and appreciation, especially right now. My question to you is, to you all are recognition and appreciation the same thing.

25:31

Recognition and appreciation the same day.

25:34

I’m gonna say they’re used interchangeably and they’re both important, but in my personal experience, there’s a big difference between them.

25:42

What I mean by that, typically traditionally in a corporate sense, or, you know, most workplaces, recognition is traditionally about given positive feedback based on results or performance.

25:52

It can be informal or formal untoward bonus or informal, high fived, thank you note, et cetera, but it’s typically, traditionally, based on performance.

26:01

In other words, something that you’ve done, that’s how we recognize you.

26:05

Now, there are some limits to recognition, and I put them is performance based is based on the past. It’s a scarce resource. I mean, I can’t everyone can’t be employee of the month of the year, I can only have so many parking spots. I can only give out somebody metal, somebody bonuses, so maybe gift cards.

26:20

And if it’s monetary, it has to come from the top.

26:23

All right.

26:24

So, I know I’m talking fast, because I’ve got a lot to cover, but you are going to get these slides. And, and so, don’t, don’t be alarmed.

26:32

That aside, there’s a limited amount of recognition to go around, so everyone can get the bonus. We know that.

26:38

My point to you to think about how we’d create a more inclusive environment is appreciation. On the other hand, is a big knowledge and a person’s inherent value.

26:51

And so, what I mean by that recognition is about what people do.

26:55

Appreciation is about who they are, who they are, and if we only focus on outcomes, right? We miss on lots of opportunities to connect that support team members.

27:09

Appreciate, I appreciate Sarah, because she’s so positive.

27:13

When I work with her, she’s easy to work with.

27:16

Does that have anything to do with their performance? You’re kinda sorta may, not really, it’s awesome.

27:21

She’s awesome human being.

27:23

Do you work with people right now and maybe you should need them, let them know that you appreciate them.

27:28

So how many are familiar with this book?

27:31

I imagine some of you are.

27:34

It describes it. Again, I’m not getting romantic here, and this is not a harmony, but stay with me. Here. There’s a lot of science in here.

27:41

What does it suggest?

27:42

Is it different? People have different love languages.

27:45

Yes, they do they have different love languages.

27:48

Well, did you know that as I understood and read and decoded, I would argue that we also have different appreciation languages at work.

28:01

Yes, indeed different appreciation languages and so did you know, and again, if you look at it, I’d love you to weigh in some people want to hear it just tell me when I do a good job other people like to be appreciated.

28:18

By you rolling up your sleeves and helping them, showing them, teaching them, assisting them other people liked the team building activities, the group lunches, the social stuff.

28:31

It could be one-on-one. It could be one to many.

28:34

Some people like the swag, the gift cards, all the coffee, the t-shirts, the Amazon gift card, all this stuff.

28:43

Then other people like physical touch, the high fives, the handshakes and the fist bumps. And we really can’t do that as much right now.

28:52

So, my point to you is, do you know, do you know the appreciation language of your folks?

29:01

Do you know? And I asked you, if you look at this list, what is your appreciation language at work right now?

29:06

If you had to pick one, what would it be?

29:09

Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, Tangible Gifts, Physical Touch, how do you like to be appreciated at work? What do you think?

29:16

Just curious.

29:21

Yeah.

29:22

And you can chat your response into the questions box, up.

29:25

We have words of affirmation, I can through a few times here accept service, worth of affirmation, again.

29:37

Words of affirmation, it seems like words of affirmation is a popular line.

29:42

Anna specifically said affirmation very specific, insightful feedback, impact on others, acknowledgements.

29:54

And then we have more words of affirmation and also physical touch, like a high five.

30:00

Got it. So, I love that. So, my point here, and I could spend hours on this, because this is really near and dear to my heart, and I do a whole program on this, is, do you know the appreciation language of the folks on your team?

30:11

Should you?

30:13

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, too often we appreciate the people, like we like to be appreciated.

30:17

Could there be some in congruence?

30:18

Well hold on now I thought you wanted to create a more inclusive work environment.

30:22

Well, if you want to create a more inclusive work environment, maybe kinda sorta should do appreciate people the way they like to be appreciated.

30:28

Could we unintentionally marginalize? People need some people the bus stop, when we appreciate people the wrong way.

30:33

Not everyone wants to do karaoke. Not everyone wants to be in newsletter, come to the front of the room. Not everyone wants to do all of the above.

30:39

Some people like to swag, some people don’t care.

30:42

So, think about it. When you create a more inclusive leader, you need to be more mindful of how people like to be appreciated.

30:48

In the first things you need to ask, you need to ask. That means like, have a conversation about it.

30:54

It’s the first step.

30:55

Now, that aside, where you’re going to pivot to the next level, I don’t know how many are aware of this, but there’s a little, small, little company in Mountain View, California called Google.

31:04

Google was trying to look at the most highest performing teams at Google. So, Google has something.

31:11

Lot of us don’t have such a big resource in big data.

31:15

And they, they titled it, Project Aristotle, And What Google found, that the number one common denominator, the highest performing teams at Google, the concept around psychological safety, It stood out as the single most important factor in building a productive, inclusive team.

31:30

Psychological safety, which was news to everybody.

31:33

Because you would think, at Google, there’ll be a high level of psychological safety. Well, you’re probably wondering maybe kind of sort of what it is. I’ll give you the academic definition, and then I’ll unpack the shared belief that the theme is safe for interpersonal risk, taking all, this sounds too academic to me.

31:46

Let me give you three versions, kind of real-world versions that I see that shows up at work.

31:51

Number one, you can be yourself that people can feel free to cover up, not to conceal their identity, not have to try to fit in.

32:00

They can just be them whatever them looks like.

32:03

Number two, they can speak up.

32:05

They can push back.

32:07

They can contribute their ideas, the cognitively, cognitively what they think matters and number three they can take risks.

32:17

If you cannot have a truly inclusive environment if you do not have psychological safety, say to be yourself safe to speak up, safe to take risk.

32:27

So, my question to all of you, and again, I don’t necessarily want you to answer, but I want you to ponder this.

32:33

How would our work team or organization change if we had more psychological safety?

32:42

Actually, I do want you to answer Howard, how would your work change?

32:46

Would your team organization change if you had more psychological safety?

32:51

We think, what would be different if, indeed, you had a higher degree of psychological safety at work. What would be different? What would change? What would improve?

32:58

Just wondering better engagements and outcomes, Catherine’s as well.

33:05

Lisa said, ideas would be why it wouldn’t be at one sided. Bob says more growth.

33:12

Like you said, less meetings after the meeting.

33:18

Yes.

33:19

It says people are trying new things, there’d be more creativity, said, Nancy Allene. More people would speak up and anisette increase of creativity.

33:33

Boom, it’s like you’ve been there, so think about it, and, again, what voices are missing on your team? So, what psychological safety is not. And I want to be clear, here, and I’m gonna just throw this up.

33:45

Again, psychological safety does not mean that you have to praise people and authentically or give out trophies because they showed up on time.

33:52

It’s not necessarily about always being fake, nice. But being candid.

33:56

It just provides a space to that to handle conflict productivity, to be candid, to speak up, because we all share a common shared identity.

34:06

In terms of identity, made it work, do it with common goals. We can be authentic self; we don’t have to pretend or placate.

34:14

If you were looking for an assessment, there’s a lot of data.

34:17

This is the one that I use or maybe Edmondson at Harvard University. Now this is just a snapshot.

34:23

But if I gave it to you, like today, and you would take in it, which we don’t have time for, if you make a mistake in, this team is often held against you.

34:33

Think about your current team.

34:35

People on this team sometime reject others will be indifferent.

34:38

It’s difficult to ask other members this thing for help.

34:40

These are just kind of a litmus test to help you kind of evaluate the degree or lack of psychological safety on your team.

34:50

It is certainly very critical. It’s almost impossible to have a truly inclusive culture without it.

34:57

Now, even the most robust D&I programs fail to foster psychological safety.

35:03

Again, whether, you know, again, it’s not just LBGTQ employees, but there’s folks right now, because, again, we carry a lot of social norms of what it is, and what it is it?

35:13

So that asylum, we put a bow on this in a psychologically safe environment, employees are less likely to cover a mass, there are differences.

35:20

I can just be me, no exhausting.

35:23

It is to try to pretend, alright?

35:25

And so, I’m gonna give you some techniques on nurturing and psychological safety, because by now, I think you get it, because I’ve been beating this drum extremely loud.

35:34

So, some techniques. Number one, we’re going through a pandemic or out of a pandemic.

35:40

And I want you to, and I put this in there, especially for all of you.

35:44

How you enter a space and how you leave a space is as important as what happens in this space.

35:52

I’m gonna read that again, how you enter a space and how you leave this space is as important as what happens in this space.

35:59

How are you leave? How are you starting, and how you ended?

36:02

How are you getting people to feel too emotionally check in?

36:06

If you’re not asking, one might infer, you don’t care.

36:09

And, again, we’re just checking in on people, if you want to make them feel included.

36:13

You need to be intentional about it.

36:15

Here’s one that I’m very passionate about, Conversational turn taking.

36:19

When I was in corporate America, 80% of the conversations are dominated by only 20% of the participants, typically.

36:27

Psychological safety is not just helping people feel safe but encourage participation alone.

36:32

All faces must be heard, so this is what we had. It was a group, Norm, on our team.

36:38

The group Norm, we discussed it as a team, that if someone’s talking, we don’t interrupt.

36:45

We don’t over talk.

36:46

We don’t hijack the conversation.

36:49

one person speaks at a time, different people process differently, and we want to be respectful, and I always encourage this. The senior leader in the room talks last.

37:01

You probably wonder why, I don’t know.

37:05

Well, because it says it right there, because they influence or intimidate others.

37:09

Because you can prime everybody else.

37:11

They’ll either assume the decision has already been made, or they don’t want to disagree with you.

37:16

So, if you want to be more inclusive, speed glassed, let other people contribute first.

37:23

And again, this is so critically important, just things that you can do to implement right away.

37:28

How about this? What do we typically do with the Messenger?

37:31

Do you know the expression?

37:33

Yeah, I do, too.

37:35

There’s a reason why we know that would happen to the physician in in Wu Han who alerted the world about coronavirus.

37:47

Yeah, I don’t know either.

37:49

It was fired, and now we haven’t heard from him since, or the Navy Captain let go for just Nicole that 19 outbreaks on the ship.

37:57

What happened to him? He’s no longer in the Navy, OK? What message does this send to everybody else?

38:04

I think you get the point, ladies and gentlemen; I love this quote by the former CEO of OpenTable, no amount of ugly to scares me, it’s just information to make a decision.

38:15

So, one group norm that you might have, do you celebrate the Messenger and redeem, you know, to bring issues forward if we can’t talk about the hard stuff, it’s not safe.

38:26

That’s why we have language like elephants in the room and sacred cows.

38:31

Because we don’t have psychological safe D, could we celebrate the messenger, give them a platform, these are just things to think about.

38:41

I’m going to be quiet here.

38:43

What are some things you think you could do to create more psychological safety on your teams, now that you’ve heard and had a little context, I’m just curious, what might you do, What could you do, what have you seen done to create more psychological safety, And I’ll be quiet.

39:00

And I’ll let you maybe share in the questions Q.

39:09

It’s not that easy.

39:10

I know, what could you do to create more psychological safety, work giving?

39:18

Invite others to challenge or question our way of thinking.

39:24

True dialog will every true dialog where everyone is on the same playing field.

39:32

Team meetings assign that each week. one person, share something with the group that will help us better work together to. Try to encourage people to talk, educate others, be an example, be an ally.

39:47

Encourage everyone to bring new ideas to the next meeting, be myself, and so I can role model authenticity.

39:58

Share ones that on our abilities, model it, and be an example and ask all members of my team what their ideas are.

40:07

Boom.

40:09

Love that. So let me give you some others. Those are all good. Let me give you some other tangible ones.

40:13

The No Interruptions Rule, these are literally rules or norms we had on my team.

40:19

Pretty self-explanatory. Like the conversational turn taking.

40:23

Share an opinion, again, are present. We don’t interrupt people. If I have to work too hard, guess what? I’m gonna, I’m not gonna contribute, I can go back to my cube at my desk and work.

40:34

All right? Another way that we can create more psychological safety is tell your story.

40:39

Yes, belonging.

40:41

We’ve talked about that a little bit, right?

40:43

Is the idea that we’re all close, one of the three characteristics of successful teams: is that we feel safe, and we share a collective future.

40:50

Do people know your story?

40:55

Give them five minutes each, and then as people share personal stories with each other, and get them to switch, I’m going to assure you that they probably have a lot more common than they think.

41:03

It’s a story that we can bring people together.

41:06

I’ve used this at the front end of meetings.

41:09

Very powerful, but you start with yourself, give you another one.

41:13

Sometimes, when we brainstorm in meetings, it feels like the Hunger Games.

41:18

Meaning, the loudest person tends to win.

41:21

Right?

41:21

So, I use somethin’ called the 1 to 4.

41:26

If we’re going to brainstorm, I have people work individually first.

41:32

So, before we bring it to the group, we worked out, read all our ideas individually, so all of us would write down our best and brightest ideas.

41:40

That way, everyone has an opportunity to contribute, then once that is done, I pair you up with somebody.

41:48

It says two minutes. It can be five minutes or again. depends on the complexity of the question.

41:52

Now I share you share.

41:55

Now we both had an opportunity to share with each other still sacred space.

42:01

Then I put you in force, still small enough, look for surprises, contradictions, commonalities. We’re building in, have an opportunity.

42:10

Then I bring the whole group together.

42:13

These are just some practical ways that you can create more psychological safety on a team when you’re brainstorming and ….

42:21

Another one, run retrospectives.

42:23

We do this in the military quite a bit, right.

42:26

Too often we do an initiative or a project.

42:31

Then we can move on to the next one you want people to take risk and innovation is one of your core values.

42:37

Could you routinely one run, run retrospectives to find out systematically? Well, not necessarily all the things we’ve lost, but what did we learn?

42:48

So, we get better and sharpen, our swords normalize, you can’t talk innovation, but we can’t normalize taking risk.

42:57

in failure. I’m going to share with you one of the most.

43:00

I don’t know, I think it’s fascinating, that Airbnb, they have what they call elephant’s dead fish and vomit, elephants dead fish and vomit.

43:11

So, what does that mean? Elephants are the big things that are happening, and people are scared to address wherever you work. I imagine there’s lots of elephants.

43:18

Dead fish are the things that happened years ago and haven’t been dealt with, that we keep talking about, and vomit of the things that people just seem to get off their minds.

43:26

So why do they use labels like this, because it provides a conduit to giving feedback?

43:33

For uncomfortable information, there’s less stressful.

43:35

So, it’s not about people. It’s about behavior.

43:39

So, again, elephants have to die. And I don’t mean literally folks, I’m talking figuratively.

43:48

Those things that are in the room that everyone is aware of, but no one ever mentions or dresses, we just keep ignoring it or we normalize it.

43:59

Do we have an elephant on your team?

44:01

If you do, it’s really hard to have a high degree of psychological safety, dead fish, dead fish.

44:08

Those are the things that happened in the past, and we keep bringing them up, regurgitate them, and talking about them and talking about them and talking about it.

44:16

It’s really hard to move forward if we continue to talk about things that are out of our control that happened months and years to go, the fish have to disappear.

44:27

Finally, vomit.

44:30

Occasionally in teams are struggling, and sometimes you just have to give them an opportunity to vomit to get it out if we’re stressful.

44:38

There’s a lot of eggs, is it a safe place for me just to say it?

44:43

Even though you know there are people who are struggling?

44:45

I’m going to show you a tool that I’ve used called uncover the stinky fish.

44:50

It’s a metaphor for those issues that we don’t want to talk about. We avoid a problem.

44:55

Literally hand this out to people.

44:57

Literally hand it out to people and have them fill it in in the 1 to 4, just like I showed you.

45:04

Individually, do it.

45:06

Then you pair them up, then you put them in fours and get people will say, please.

45:10

My favorite question is what does everyone thinking? And no one is saying.

45:16

It’s psychologically safe. We need we can move beyond that if we are beholden to it.

45:21

All right.

45:22

So finally, you mentioned it, you took me to that place.

45:28

How do we truly create when we’ve done all the right things? when it comes to mind?

45:32

When I say the word ally, Ally, well, I think Allies ship, Ally ship again. Mission critical in terms of inclusive work environment?

45:45

Does anybody know who this gentleman is right here?

45:49

A little bit dated? But I’m just curious since the Olympics is upon us.

45:55

Nobody knew that.

45:58

If you don’t know who that is, what’s going on there?

46:01

Anybody know the backstory on this Olympics?

46:03

And the Americans, they’re what they’re doing.

46:08

We have a question from Kennedy asked that she said there was a third guy.

46:14

He’s not American, but yes.

46:19

Anybody know what’s going on there?

46:21

What do they matter?

46:31

All right.

46:31

So, again, they were, again, not much different than now.

46:40

Activism, again, in terms of our African Americans, were treated in this country. They did at the Olympics. My point, though, is to think about this guy. No one talks about this guy.

46:49

He made the choice to stand up on the podium with these gentlemen.

46:53

And now, his name is Peter …, he’s from Australia. Did it take courage to do it?

47:00

What do you think, even though he knew what those Americans were going to do?

47:05

Yeah. It took a lot of courage.

47:07

If you look at his story, it was his career went sideways when it got back to Australia.

47:14

He was ostracizing that go on for to be an ally.

47:20

Fascinating.

47:21

Because Allied ship again, I’m not going to give them kind of giving me the academic definition, but the continuous process in which someone seek first to learn about the experience of a group of people marginalized group, emphasize with a challenge to build relationship to advocate for them.

47:35

Do we need more allies to have an inclusive environment certainly?

47:40

So, again, I ask you, who’s speaking most in your group on your team?

47:45

Is someone having difficulty being heard?

47:49

Are there patterns related to gender, race, age, or anything else?

47:53

And how do these conversations or discussions compare the ones you have another context?

47:59

Could you be more acutely aware of who’s speaking in your group?

48:04

Is there a potential opportunity to be an ally or to have more ally ship Sill enough of the talk?

48:18

Let’s see what you would do at a meeting that you’re in.

48:21

It says you run, but I’m gonna say at a meeting that you’re in a person with moderate proficiency in English makes a suggestion.

48:29

No one picks up on it.

48:31

Later on in the meeting, a person with high proficiency in English makes the same suggestion and as given credit, for it.

48:41

My question for you is: what could you do, what would an ally do?

48:51

In this situation, at a meeting, you’re, in. Order now, I do.

49:02

Let’s see.

49:03

Aye.

49:05

First off, Candy commented, and she said, this webinar is awesome. And she also said that often happens with men and women.

49:14

Lynn said, say that the idea was presented before by X, Courtney said speak up for that person. You know, so and so actually mentioned that earlier.

49:27

Do you have anything else to add?

49:29

And forming a group of the first suggestion that restate what the person said, an attribute it to then acknowledge contribution to set the record straight, Ally would let you know who the idea actually came from.

49:49

First, recognize the natural bias that people with foreign accent are perceived as less credible. And secondly, make a tactful comment to recognize both people’s respective contributions.

50:04

I mean, this webinar is awesome, so these attendees are all some aren’t. They’re great. They have great hands. All right. So let me give you another one. A woman you manage this is a man woman you manage your work with goes on, maternity leave.

50:17

You were discussing which projects to assign to people after she has returned.

50:21

Including one is in her area of expertise, a peer manager, peer colleague of yours says she has a small baby.

50:30

She won’t want to travel.

50:33

Is there an issue here?

50:34

What would you do?

50:49

Is there an opportunity for an ally?

50:52

Up here, the comments come through and ask her, um, shout-out to you for being considerate of so and so for being a new mom. But let’s check with her to see if she’s interested.

51:06

Ask the person if she wants to travel.

51:09

Bias challenged the assumption.

51:13

I offer it to her first, and if she has an issue, she will say so herself, she is the best fit.

51:20

Respond that we should check in, versus assume.

51:24

Say you can’t assume this.

51:26

ask, what do you mean by that.

51:29

I mention that women can see that the woman can speak up for herself and allow her to do so. As an ally, I would suggest that she be allowed to decide what it is that she would like to do.

51:41

It’s not up to us to make a decision for someone else and discuss workarounds.

51:47

Love it. So, again, I’m just gonna give you one more, because I’m going to take you to the next level here.

51:53

You’re in a work meeting and a young employee, relatively, you know, a year in who doesn’t have much experience offers a suggestion who never usually contributes. A senior level manager shuts them down harshly in front of the whole group.

52:11

What do you do?

52:13

What could you do?

52:14

What would’ve ally do?

52:23

Say that you thought that their idea was valid and open the discussion again.

52:30

And now, I would mention that the idea has merits recognize contribution and appreciate them for doing so.

52:39

Seek out and thank the new employee for their contribution, and then bring up a discussion of it.

52:45

Let them know that multi-generational workplaces are the most successful.

52:51

There’s lots of factors here, but me personally, I’d find something of value to emphasize from their suggestion and try to re-activate the conversation.

53:00

Challenge the senior level manager mentioned at a meeting. A young employee may have a good suggestion.

53:08

I’ll read off another one here, indicate that they have a valid idea and that we should consider.

53:14

All right, well, congratulations, again. So, there’s a lot of things we get, and some of us get Ally ship.

53:20

But it shows up in different flavors and sometimes, we think that it’s always about, it’s going to be over the top avert.

53:27

Sometimes it’s the subtleties and I want you to be acutely aware going on if you want to pay them on inclusive environment.

53:33

Do situations like this arise, choir and minds want to know what do you do?

53:38

Because silence, in most cases is complicit.

53:41

Now, the desired future, ladies and gentlemen, is, we want to make it safe for people that are orange dot, those outliers.

53:48

For those people, to be, OK to make it a safe place, we don’t want to make people average.

53:55

We want to make it a safe place to raise the entire average up to make it more inclusive for everybody.

54:02

So how can we support allyship?

54:05

How can we make it more systemic?

54:07

What would your team be willing to do? What would you be willing to do?

54:11

These are questions. If you’re not talking about it, it’s clearly not that important.

54:16

Again, if you’re not talking about it, it’s clearly not that important.

54:21

I’m just throwing these across the fence for you to think about going forward when they leave here today, this is absolutely critical.

54:28

Now, allies’ skills, it’s a couple of things here.

54:31

I had a bare minimum, right? That’s the expectation.

54:35

At a bare minimum, I say, Follow your discomfort.

54:39

Follow this, cut your discomfort, if you find that something makes you feel bad far, find out more and understand why before reacting.

54:48

If you make a mistake, apologize, correct yourself, and move on. If you make a mistake, apologize, correct yourself and move on. It happens, it happened to me the other day When someone’s pronouns they use their pronouns incorrectly.

55:01

I didn’t know I was russet that I make a mistake.

55:04

Yes, my bad person. No, but I own the mistake, I apologize, and I kept moving and we’ve talked about it.

55:12

So, ally ship in summary for all of you.

55:15

It is a behavior, a practice, not to an identity, you’re not a superhero because you came in and now it’s a behavior Practice, that identity. This is also critical. It expires each night at midnight.

55:30

Yes, it expires. Each night at midnight we have to reply every day.

55:36

We can’t rest on our laurels what we’ve done in the past.

55:40

It’s about how you show up for people in marginalized groups.

55:44

They’re the ones who can tell you whether or not you’re being helpful or not in your action or inaction.

55:51

In other words, there’s no neutral silence is complicity in being an ally.

55:58

And would that?

56:01

we’ve got a couple of minutes left. I’m going to open it up for any questions and then turn it over to you Sarah because this has been the fastest 56 minutes.

56:09

And the history of webinars.

56:13

56 minutes, if you have any questions, type them into the questions box now. We’ll be able to get to maybe 1 or 2 of those today.

56:22

We did have another, we have so many comments coming through, Devin, about how valuable and insightful this session was.

56:31

Wow, so they so that they must think my appreciation language has words of affirmation, Sarah, that was your thinking, I would think South.

56:42

Alright, well, we have tons of comments coming through about how great this webinar was. It seems like there’s no questions today. But much, much kudos to you, Devin.

56:53

Also, we’ll stay in touch, please, yes, and today’s webinar was sponsored by HRDQ-U Virtual Seminars. Be sure to check out our curriculum of more than 80 virtual instructor led online seminars. Again, Devin will actually be running some of those sessions for us as we get later in the year. You can go to www.hrdqu.com/virtualseminars for more information. That is all the time that we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us today, Devin.

57:28

Thanks for having me everybody, stay in touch and if I can help you, let me know.

57:33

Great, and thank you all for participating in today’s webinar, Happy Training!

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