Transcript for:
Understanding DEI Fundamentals with SJ Simpson Joseph

hi everybody thank you so much for joining us for webinar wednesday um today we have dei um fundamentals sort of a little intro and this is presented by sj simpson joseph esquire aka jay and uh we got to be working with jay because jay worked with our accelerates president steve heckler for a non-profit company that he works for in atlanta and they needed a little help with some team building and just some working some magic so jay came in and really impressed the heck out of everybody including steve and so when we learned that she also taught dei we were just like we must have her so now we uh we have her classes and she's a wonderful instructor and we're going to get started here just in a moment i just wanted to let you know that this session is being recorded and it will be up on our youtube channel it will also be up on accelerate.com library videos and we'll be sending you a copy of the presentation in an email after this is over and just to tell you a little bit about accelerate my name's anne i've been with excelibrate for 12 years now um but we've been in business for almost 20 years and we teach a variety of different technologies all over the u.s worldwide and of course online so other things that we teach other than the dei courses we teach programming classes data science microsoft products robotics process automation aws devops javascript libraries and a lot more um but today of course we're here to talk about dei and um if you go to our website accelerate.com dei training you'll see four courses there um so jay actually literally wrote all of the courses and if you get her on the phone she would be really good at customizing any class that you should need we teach online or sometimes in person um and uh many of the courses are one or two days but jay is so wonderful and flexible that she can do half days um sometimes people want you know every tuesday we want a two-hour seminar so she can work with you to do that so jay is an attorney a graduate of stanford law school she's a strategic coach with 20 years experience in transformation management and with a specialization in diversity equity and inclusion and she was congratulations recently named ei leader of the year for 2021 by the global association of talent development's greater atlanta chapter so awesome um and she starts she serves as an advisor to corporations federal state governments non-profits um and she can really go in and she uses her her methodology of critical thinking creative solutions and she's really able to get in there um see what the organization needs and is able to trans transform them and so when steve saw what she did with their nonprofit um he was he was so impressed and that's why and this is this is why we get jay and i've also seen her in action and um she does work some magic so we thank you so much for being here jay and um i think we have just a little video first is that is that right yeah and i i just wanted to um to say thank you ann for the wonderful and warm introduction i really appreciate it hello everyone it is an honor to be here and to to speak and share about something i'm absolutely passionate about which is diversity equity and inclusion both in terms of the values as well as how we put them into practice and we're going to show a very brief video which um i invite you just to experience and it's called that little voice okay i'll go ahead and just i'll kill my webcam and i'll just go ahead and start this and i don't think we're hearing it i don't know if other people are not hearing it i don't think the sound's coming through yeah yeah it's a it's in forward mode and the sound is not coming through okay all right i'm sorry jay can i just turn it over to you to maybe start your presentation and then um i'll i'll see what what i can do about this on the technical side and then perhaps play it at the end absolutely no thank you so much yeah of course thank you and mike actually if you're able to if if you would be able to um perhaps help and tee it up that would be great i don't know if that's possible i i don't know if it would come through with the audio from here okay all right well um i'm gonna go ahead and share my screen then and i want to say welcome to everyone and um thank you all for being here so i i want to really start out but that little voice in your head i'm going to go ahead and talk about it um first of all everybody see my screen properly hello um so yeah jay we can see the um uh we can see your screen it's just the yeah the presentation sorry that's what i was trying to say great here we go everybody good now okay great yeah okay okay so i'm actually talk a little bit about that that voice in your head then um i'll kind of recreate the video a little bit so one of the things about the voice in your head is that oftentimes we think we're the only person that has that voice going on in our head and and some of the ways that the video highlights a voice in your head is that thing of where let's say you're somebody that um that has done a hard day's work and um and you know that you have to leave and go and pick up your your kids at the end of the day now it may be that you know you you we typically think of that as a mom but it may be for example you know a dad who's at work and having that experience as you put your bag over your shoulder and you're walking out the door and you see people kind of look a little side-eyed at you the question is what's that voice in your head that goes off saying oh wow do they think i'm committed or uncommitted to my work and so what that what i want to emphasize and invite you all to do today is just to think about what is that little voice in your head that can show up sometimes when you're in a work environment whoever you are that little voice of doubt um that shows up and so i want you to think about that because that's part of what this explores it's the idea that when we hear a little voice in our head we're not the only one hearing it um and what do we do and how do we enable ourselves to be empowered around i'm gonna sin i'm gonna say the synonym for that voice in our head can be doubt or wondering or concern around how we are landing with other individuals in our workspace so that said um i invite you to think about that little voice um but also to think and just to recognize that we're all humans and we all have that little voice so one of the things i want to do i was going to share with you um my little voice um before i start talking about the intentions of this workshop so i have a little bead here in my hair i always wear beads in my hair and my little voice says wow i wonder if the participants noticed that that little bead and if they did what if they made it mean something about me something positive or negative something um something that says something about you know who i am as a woman in this society a woman of color and whether it made them think about something about my hair or not and in fact now that i'm saying these things now you may be thinking hmm but my point is we all have these little voices going on in our head and sometimes they can also be synonymous with what shows up as um as little bias biases that we don't realize we have or that we do realize that we have so one of the things i want to go ahead and dive into is what are the intentions of this workshop so i have the slide on the screen i'm not going to bore you all by reading it through bullet by bullet but i want us to go ahead and take a look at it and what i want to acknowledge is the fact that really the foundation and framework for exploring diversity equity and inclusion is really in fact understanding what are the core concepts of diversity equity and inclusion in the first place what are they and how can we as a collective group of team members when you're in a given company corporate environment have what i like to call with my lawyer had on a meeting of the minds and what that means is oftentimes we think we have a sense of what our definition is of diversity or equity and inclusion but it may in fact be different from the person who who works beside us and sometimes some of the very challenges that arise come up because we don't all have the same sense of what diversity and equity and inclusion actually really really mean how we're defining them collectively so that meeting of the minds is an opportunity for a collective understanding of and defining of what diversity equity and inclusion is and inside of that then is it with that understanding mutual understanding enables us to then function in a fashion that allows for more um collaborative work and increases the ability for us to to be more productive and more inclusive in our work so again what we're going to do is to really understand these core concepts of dei to define the benefits of a diversity equity and inclusion initiative within an organization um to take us to take a significant significant step in embracing the vision for an understanding of what dei really is now i know we only have um i'm checking my time here 50 minutes and counting so clearly what i'm offering is just kind of like a a taster flavor for understanding these things but what i really want to emphasize is that these intentions really symbolize the approach and the strategic methodology that we can take toward beginning to transform an organization inside of our diversity equity and inclusion work i do also want to acknowledge and i i'm i see from some of the attendees that there are many of you that are already actively involved in diversity equity and inclusion work and already you know you may have a strong expertise in it or you may be in a space of saying i have literally no idea what diversity equity inclusion really means in practice or perhaps even in defining one of the things i want to emphasize is that wherever you are that's the place to come to this workshop that's the place to come to this webinar it's one of the important components of recognizing that diversity equity and inclusion are truly values that are often quite quite challenging to grasp to understand i think for some people they may be optimistic and hopeful when you begin a dei dialogue and set of practices within an organization um they may be also resistant or frankly um you know downright saying you know what we don't need this what does this even mean so one of the things i like to emphasize when i do a diversity equity inclusion workshop is that all you are welcome in whatever space you're in so i invite you right now as i continue to move forward to think about where are you at in regard to diversity equity inclusion and to recognize that inside of this space there's room for all of us um because we're all going to be dialoguing learning and growing together um so why does the ei matter you know one of the things that's really pivotal is sometimes we you know people think about dei from the perspective of um well it's important i want my you know i want my kids to understand that it's you know nice to be you know not to be a jerk to your classmates or you know to to really respect everybody but maybe that's where it stops so fortunately um that's not the case and fortunately diversity equity and inclusion are practices that have really really um become far more um pivotal and critical inside of where we are right now in 2022. started to say 2021 i don't know if anybody else's mind worked that way but um so we've taken a lot of progress and ground in corporations in federal and state government in non-profits and in um and in individual environments in recognizing that there really is value to the practices of dei and i promise we're going to define those further in a moment but first i want to talk about what are the benefits for dei and i want to specifically emphasize it in this case as it pertains to your company and your organization um so some of these are obvious and you know again as i said it may be also singing with the choir in some cases in regard to the fact that you may already um you know be knee deep in a dei initiative in your own organization but sometimes we um really don't focus upon recognizing just how many tangible benefits there are literally what the roi is in regard to making sure that dei is embedded throughout your company so therefore we've got um the dei benefits of for your company being all about building inspired teams providing better and more productive communication strengthening employment recruitment employee recruitment and retention improving productivity and of course increasing profitability and then really developing faster and more effective problem solving and lastly but very important advancing customer loyalty and impacting social good those are all really pivotal aspects of it so for dei fundamentals which i promise would be really our core focus for this particular webinar i like to talk about the fact that we've got what we call dei heart strides and the dei foundation or framework so right now inside of dei heart strides that's a recognition that the process of transformation really lies in both heart and mind inside of our dei social justice work when we're exploring it so what that means is when i think about um you know working for many years in this field i think about the fact that there was a time when you're in a environment inside of an organization corporation in a board room where utilizing terms such as you know dare i say love ah um would have have you looked at a scance no i'm not saying that you can just kind of walk in your you know boardroom saying i just love everyone although you know that it's a tempting thing to do try it out sometime um but really well now with my labor hat on that's another conversation but really what i'm saying is that even when i read you know extraordinary articles um and white papers by ceos of current corporations whether it's um whether it's verizon or twitter there's a recognition that both mind and heart matter when it comes to the work of diversity equity and inclusion one of the things that i've worked to develop is a methodology so that it's not just um conversation but actually practices around how can we incorporate dei what i like to call heart strides inside of how we do our work and then recognizing also that with a dei the very foundation of our work provides a core understanding of how can we actually translate these values into practice so one of the things that that i want to talk about in regard to diversity is recognizing that diversity is what makes each of us different so for me in terms of this particular webinar if i can convey one thing perhaps more profoundly than any other it's to really encourage that we take an expansive view on the question of what is diversity so now for me as a woman of color talking with you my diversity if you will is obvious and apparent and i take great great joy and pride in being who i am but i also take great joy and pride in recognizing that we are all humans and that it is the collective group of us as humans that that's what diversity is so literally what that means is that really diversity is about each and every one of us being different therefore human and therefore i'm working to really disappear this concept of other this concept where i'm diverse but you're not so what i want to emphasize is the fact that i just invite you all to really study this diversity definition and recognize that it talks about that diversity can be more or less apparent and that it includes everything from age and ethnicity um parental status nationality sexual orientation skin color but also literally the perspectives of thought of life experience of lived experience of whether you you know whether you grew up um i'm using some real basic terms here poor or rich but how do you define that and how do you hold it it's your story and your voice and how you define it why does that matter it matters because the more we can embrace a recognition that diversity actually is each and every one of us being different the more we can embrace a recognition that wow so then all of our voices matter all of our voices um make a difference in terms of how we can actually speak to one another and help one another to really understand the nature of diversity and the nature of the fact that diversity matters in that when we're all inside of one room and we're all comfortable in our ability to share who we are and what our journey is it actually enhances the experience and can enhance the environment as well so while while this is a webinar so i'm just giving you a little taste and flavor for what for what the actual workshops and trainings would be like um here what we really would do so i'm gonna invite you to do it on your own as well would be to we do a diversity exercise and that in this case would just be please i invite you in your own time to think about your life journey but through this prism of this diversity definition so to think about defining how your journey has gone for me for example i grew up in jamaica queens new york um any i don't know i can't unfortunately get to hear the shout outs or not um in regard to it but i grew up in jamaica queens new york i am the child of um of parents who my dad was a social worker in the south bronx um he spent his entire life committed to the work of change and transformation um for you know for extremely disenfranchised um and also quite amazing um community my mom who is i believe on this um on this webinar right now was a um and always will be an educator in the inner city um in queens new york um and she did everything from teaching kindergarten to running a middle school where she did extraordinary work there so my point in this case though in addition to sharing something about myself is also just to recognize that i grew up where our dinner table conversation when we could slow down long enough to join around the table um you know what one moment um was around the work of social good so you know that's my wiring but i also describe it to say you know that's my diversity story that's my my journey if you will and so i invite you to think about your journey from the standpoint of how then do you show up in the world and what is your your prism or perspective i remember doing um doing this diversity exercise with some team members who um one of whom was this you know extraordinary teacher um a white woman um probably i think she maybe is about 65 and she had single single-handedly raised four kids in addition to all the extraordinary children that she is now working with at this school the reason i share about her though was because when we started the exercise her approach was i'm so honored to work with these diverse young people because the young people were um from a school for a school for refugee girls but through the exercise and the exploration which she began to own was her own diversity journey so some of the things that i just told you about so for example if you're a single parent that's part of your diversity story that's different from someone who's who's in a nuclear family if you will and then of course the definition of nuclear family um is one that's always organic and varying as well how one person holds that is different from another i emphasize all these examples because really what i want to convey is just that we are each different and inside of recognizing this sense of our diversity and owning it then it enables us to not see someone as other and disconnected but to see them as human and part of our collective community environment obviously the benefits to that are quite apparent when you think about your team in a work environment because once you approach things that way you're far more um both i think honest and vulnerable with yourself but you're also able to then be open um with your teammates in terms of being receptive to what their journey is to differences of thought and opinion as well and so this is just again encouraging that diversity journey so i'm going to go ahead i want to talk about equity but i want to start by talking about it in picture form because of course a picture really is worth a thousand words and i promise that when i am doing my workshops and trainings there are a lot more um different innovative tools that i use um but i really wanted to be able to convey the information today um but it's very much what i like to call a a more than five senses experience um so i want to talk about equity in picture form and just invite you to look at the distinction between these two pictures now of course there's equality which we can all value greatly both as a as a term as well as a practice as well as a right but by the same token what equality here highlights is the fact that we are in a place where we have three equal boxes everybody got the same box but look what it provides and more importantly what it does not provide similarly when you move over to equity when we talk about fairness in every situation then you look at the fact that through just taking a moment because if you think about it it didn't probably really take that long to vary the um the organization of these boxes such that each person is now able to see the game and that's the beauty and each person is able to have that experience and to receive what they needed in order to do it and i think i want to emphasize the fact that sometimes people get a little put off when they hear that term equity as if it implies that someone's going to be given something that that they're not deserving of or that somehow takes something away from you when somebody else is given what some people might define as you know a leg up however if you see this picture is it really a leg up no it's simply making sure that there's a level field if you will so that everybody can see over that fence and thus be fully participatory i'm going to go ahead to one more slide i'd adore this because again look at the distinction here you know so important access is pivotal because here we look at the distinction between equality and equity and think about the fact that um you know when you looked at that first picture you may or may not have thought about well but what if i'm in a wheelchair what if i'm differently abled how is it that i then get to view you know and that's so pivotal and so here with equity you see that an additional accommodation has been made so that everyone can see so you can again ask yourself well you know what would it take what's the cost for example let's say what's the cost of building out this ramp well you can look at it and say well you know that would increase our budget by x but you can also look at it as the value that it can that it provides is extraordinary and let's say and i don't just mean i don't just mean the social good value i do also mean the productivity value because if you stick with that equality picture and the person in that wheelchair doesn't get to see the game doesn't get to participate you lose out on everything that that person had to give and if you map it into an employment circumstance in that circumstance eventually what may happen is that you know lack of retention that person goes away and you miss out on some of the most extraordinary contribution to your corporation that you could have experienced so i'll take us back for a moment to the equity definition and i'll invite you to take a look at that but you know really again equity is that approach that ensures simply that everyone has the same opportunities it's a very very pivotal value and it's pivotal to incorporate it in practice and a lot of what i do in the trainings is work with teams to define ways that equity can be put into practice in real time as well and so then i will move on to inclusion and this is the whole exploration around a safe space and so again one of the things i want to talk about is that going back to that dei heart strides that mind and heart proposition one of the things that i do is i do a whole workshop around dei heart strides because the thing is it truly is transformative so if you think about your life if you understand something from an intellectual perspective that's one thing that's you know utilizing a particular wiring of your body but when you start to incorporate um incorporate the heart incorporate other senses into how you're processing a circumstance a given situation it really can in fact make a tremendous difference because then you've embraced it um wholeheartedly as opposed to having a more distant relationship to a given proposition so in this case i'm going to mix it up a little um i don't recall quite well yes and did say that um that i've applied creative solutions what i do is i define myself actually as a creative creative advocate or even more so a poetic activist um for me sometimes the most pure form of being able to express ideas uh thoughts concepts to contribute to social changes through poetry this poem is called freedom dance and i invite you to reflect upon it through the prism of inclusion and i'll go ahead and share it with you now so you can kind of lean back you don't have to read the words i will share it with you freedom dance hear the whisper of the sound the rhythm of the beat i can feel it in my soul though dancing with bound feet to execute a pirouette i simply tilt my head for arms the chain behind one's back cannot be used instead my grace is not within my leap or twirls up off the floor no it shines from deep within my glance and how my spirit soars how my spirit soars so i invite you just to to contemplate um for yourself what that poem means in the context of inclusion in the context of the distinction between being able to um to soar and to not feel bound versus feeling bound or silenced or not included in its most basic form and i would love to have a more expansive dialogue with you all on that and i invite you to um to join the to join the trainings where that's exactly part of how we would explore it so then i'm going to go on and i'm i promise i'm going to save time at the end for some questions as well but i just want to talk about dei uprising literally recognizing that it can indeed be a framework within your organization and obviously it doesn't take the place of all the other extraordinary work accomplishments strategic planning that you have but what it is is an opportunity to to make sure that diversity equity equity and inclusion that little tongue twister there um are thoroughly integrated in your organization also recognize that it's a process it's a journey um you know it's a it's a marathon not a sprint um over my shoulder i've got my little marine corps marathon um metal i won't tell you how long ago it was but the point is that i can testify to the pain of being in the 19th mile and saying oh my god i've got to keep pushing but i also love to use that as an example of the fact that when we face challenges we can recognize that that we can push through them so i guess that's also a little bit more about about my journey and recognizing the power of pushing ahead and moving forward and recognizing the power that sometimes you got to pace yourself so one of the things that i recognize is one of course sharing and just literally recognizing and writing statements saying diversity equity and inclusion matter to us matter to our organization matter to our corporation i think there's deep value in that um you know there's been a lot of discussion around the concept that is that simply performative when it's a statement and it stops there well the whole point is that we really and truly want to thoroughly embed the ei and recognize that it is not just the values that we stand on but also these systems and practices that we design define and integrate throughout a given entity that matter but it does start with actually recognizing that the value managed matters and having the the commitment the bravery and the courage to put it out there and to state that um so with that i love renee brown and again i wish i could um see you all to see how many people going yeah brene but she's an extraordinary she's really an extraordinary i'm social scientist most importantly she's an extraordinary writer um you know leadership management expert worldwide so i have included her quote here because one of the things that i find pivotal to to accomplishing um transformation or aka change management within a given organization or just a given group of people a group of humans is really the opportunity to approach the exercise as a team to approach whatever you're doing as a team and i am not saying that carving out a true um team methodology and being true team in terms of your connectedness and relatedness is an easy task um but i think it's an extraordinarily worthwhile one i'm sure there are many people um also on this webinar who are team lead experts um who are passionate about teams as well i love the fact that um inside of renee's work and when i when i do work with teams i highly encourage reading um some of her are more cutting edge books and also or pulling excerpts from them i'm like exploring what is engaged feedback look versus feedback that keeps you at a distance um feedback that allows you to feel together i'll be looking for that at the end too i appreciate it um you know looking at how can we be brave how can we be vulnerable how can we be candid and courageous and so uh yeah all those things of course matter and we don't hit it every day but the beauty of it is when you as a collective group agree that this is the these are the guiding principles under which we're going to function and of course everyone you know as a team explores what are the guiding principles for your team or your organization that work for you um but these principles also become the grounding and the seating through which diversity equity inclusion thrives within your organization so for example if you have the value of applying vulnerability and i realize that's a loaded term sometimes it's kind of like well what does that really mean is you know we i can do a whole workshop on that but the point is that really in this case but i want to emphasize that vulnerability is also just about you know having the courage to be um to be open and candid um and to um and to expect and to offer that to your team and to those in your life okay so creating a culture of empathy these are just some of the core steps i know you know we hear a lot of this language and and of course the word empathy is one that um that certainly is is deep and meaningful to me i think that the beauty of uh not trying to romanticize where our society is we've got some extraordinary challenges right now that's another workshop um but we've got some extraordinary challenges right now from a political social economic climate perspective we do also have an ex to have extraordinary opportunities i choose to see it as the latter i will say that um anne frank is my great shiro who chooses to see the the beauty and the power that lives inside of the world and in a majority of the people who exist so inside of that i say one of the core best practices for allowing diversity equity and inclusion to flourish in a given organization once you've more actively actually explored what dei really is work together to craft an actual definition collective definitions that work for you and begin also to build out team that are committed to these principles or who are committed to even exploring them again as i said wherever you're at wherever however you're feeling about dei you are a part of your given team and organization and the idea is for mutual respect but also mutual listening learning and openness to flourish um let me be clear there's a full recognition that you know that there are all sorts of you know um bias microaggressions macro aggressions etc that are rife within our environment our culture and all of our lives and organizations because we can't avoid that but the idea is how can we nonetheless work together to transform and continue to move forward to get to a point where even though those things exist we're doing things such as cultivating allyship meaning um helping others to understand each of us better so that there's less other and less condemnation and more appreciation and mutual respect let me also be really clear when i say that when i come in and i do workshops i am meeting people wherever they are there are people who are devastated hurt and angry inside of a corporation who are silently working each day in pain and this is an opportunity to be when i say this i mean this meaning this type of work sure it's not for the faint of heart because what it means is that people begin to actually be in not only really be able to be in touch and be honored in touch with themselves and honored when they're having that experience but then the real question becomes then how do we start to transform that experience because people have value as team members in organizations but what happens is oftentimes when someone's silently suffering um they end up leaving and we lose out on all the value that they had now sometimes it's simply not a good it's not a good fit or there's structural issues within a given organizational infrastructure that are also delaying and inhibiting the opportunity for folks to really function and thrive both as individuals in their responsibilities as well as a team that's one of the other things that that we do a lot of work in inside of diversity equity and inclusion because i don't look at it in a vacuum as just values to be laid laid before a team to say okay let's take these values on let's have a meeting in the minds and then let's rock basically what the real question becomes also is you've got to study your organizational infrastructure you've got to look at your systems and practices and realize that sometimes it's those structures themselves that um that make it difficult to practice dei an example of that might be you know if you've got a particular um role let's say an operations um director but inside of that inside of that series of responsibilities that person holds you've got several other roles rolled into one where they're really wearing five hats the reality may then be that whatever that person's functioning commitment to wanting to even um espouse or operate under some of the values of let's say inclusion it may be the very work work um organizational structure of their role and responsibility that's inhibiting the ability for them to perform and exercise inclusion um so it's a it's a really good example something to take a look at from the standpoint of your organizational infrastructure designs to see where sometimes these things can show up so again you know i want to emphasize the fact that these are core steps that can be you know that can be applied to creating a culture of empathy it's an ongoing process and part of the important thing is always checking in with your team to really see um you know to see if people are experiencing the culture as one of empathy regardless of what everyone's commitment to that is and again there are policies and procedures and structures that go into into making that process happen so you can just you know it's not of course there's questionnaires surveys etc there are also um workshops dialogues um you know even you know i would say even for example making sure that you have hr structures and so on all of which interplay to allow you to emerge with a best practice organization where diversity equity and inclusion values flourish within the context of the work that you do so again i want to talk about just we're amplifying dei i happen to personally love that word but i think it's a very pivotal one for when we dialogue about this because it is a it is a slow amplification process where we're looking at how can we um you know live this work out loud so to speak um so it's a paradigm shift that lives for dei and you can you know i hope that out of this webinar you'll also really explore where you are at in regard to your company your non-profit uh your life as it pertains to how dei is is functioning thriving flourishing or not in the context of your work so just recognizing and emphasizing that really it's about it's shifting your listening it's shifting your seeing your speaking ultimately your actions all of which working together begin to transform your community and so i just want to emphasize also that the dei journey is really indeed it is a catalyst for organizational uh development and transformation and advancement um and all the things that go into moving your organization forward um again as you can tell this is something that i am extremely passionate about for me i am someone that literally went to law school so that i could understand more of what makes this country tick and if i perceive of you know the scales of justice like this and recognizing that in fact they're tilted like that um so that so many are are disenfranchised or vulnerable or challenged and and my work is looking at how can i help to really have the skills of justice like so um i'm sorry that you didn't get to see the the video around that little voice in your head but i'm assuming it's showing up right now as well because really when we pause and listen it always is um so for me though one of the things that inspired me about that about that about that video is the fact that i think a lot about voice um i use it from a poetic poetic activist perspective as well as when i'm um when i'm writing and dialoguing about our voice being so pivotal so you could you could say it's a synonym of course for your your contribution your ideas your work who you are as an identity for me i wrote a poem called yesterday i found my voice and i'd like to read it to you now um and just share it as a context for what does it really mean to find your voice to own your voice and to share it and to recognize that it can ebb and flow we can have days where we feel that we're really you know in voice um you know at the top of our game if you will and then days where it's not so much um all of that makes us human beings and so i'm gonna go ahead and share this with you now yesterday i found my voice today i live to tell about it i didn't shout from the rooftops i didn't whisper or scream but i spoke and the words that i heard were my own yesterday i found my voice today i live to tell about it and i sing a hallelujah chorus in a key i've never tried before tell about it tell about it i am a warrior woman i won't roll over or die give up dry up or be sucked up yesterday i found my voice and it's here to stay because i can't let it go i chant over and over right on all my pages say it again again in my head and then i open my mouth and i cry out loud yesterday i found my voice today i'm here to shout about it and this one's for you all those who know exactly what i'm talking about so thank you encouraging all of us to find and own our voice but as important to support others in allowing their voices to um to come forth um so i have saved time for questions and then i know after that anne is going to share a little bit more about the course structure so i'm going to go ahead and invite questions now um and it looks like i'm already getting some so i'm gonna go ahead and i'm gonna try to get to all of your questions um but i will i'll just go ahead and dive in so i've got one question that's asking about the concept of um let me see what does it say exactly it says um when you talk about a culture of empathy how do you sorry i should put my glasses on everyone when you talk about a culture of empathy how do you effectively launch one what sense does that really make i added that last part because i understood what they were um asking so when you talk about a culture of empathy how do you really launch one i think it's an excellent question because i really want to emphasize the fact that i fully understand that this work is both um you know intellectual um you know systemic uh process and policy oriented and it is also one that really in fact does require an engaging of and engaging of the heart or if you will and engaging of um any emotional um responses and emotional shifts and recognizing that all these these different components go into the building of a culture of empathy as the word empathy itself defines um for me i am a you know trained attorney as was spoken of in the beginning by the same token i am as i also said a poet so i kind of come by this wiring naturally if you will um but so in launching a culture of empathy one of the things that is pivotal is simply recognizing the fact that um a that it actually is relevant that it matters so respecting that it's even relevant to a given space and then b it's actually working on um allowing for in an inclusive environment so one where one you build practices and policies that respect um and understand that people's diverse voices matter that also means that if someone is being treated in a way that's not only unfair and appropriate but you know violating their you know their rights and so on that there are systems in place in a given corporation um to address that so you have to have the systemic approach but you also cr you can also create a space where um where you have practices in place so that for example when you enter a team meeting a team meeting space how do you make sure that you individually are respectful to the people inside of that discussion so that you're utilizing your own i like to call it engaged feedback checklist you're not speaking over someone you're not you can catch yourself and realize when you're making a a bias judgment based on what somebody looks based on that little you know bead that's hanging out there that you get can get caught up in making assumptions about individuals as opposed to treating them treating the person and respecting them around that table so those are just some components of it but there are really core structures and i do want to acknowledge that at this point it truly creating a culture of empathy truly is considered part of the best practice journey toward making sure that you have a have a corporation where diversity equity and inclusion are really embedded throughout and please notice i said like embedded and integrated throughout it's not just like a quick add-on or build-on that you tack on on the side and so i really want to um to emphasize that as well that's so important um okay so i see some other questions here um so i've got a question in regard to i guess it's sort of similar but i'll go ahead and share it um in regard to so it's one thing let's see it's basically saying how do you put these how do you put diversity equity inclusion into practice as an organization so in other words i guess what they're i think what they're asking is inside of diversity equity inclusion you can see it as a value as a series of values we've talked about that but when it comes to actually putting it into practice how does that work um so one i invite you whoever wrote this i totally invite you to please um take that particular course i have a whole course called you know dei the practitioner but what i'll emphasize is a few things one you can't do it alone so one of the most pivotal things is beginning to build out a um a team of diversity equity and inclusion um can i call them like you know champions advocates those who more actively believe in the pro in the process and have come to a belief in it um so that they can become also kind of bridges to encouraging the people within the context of their subgroups and teams um to have even more candid conversations because sometimes regardless of what type of culture you build these candid honest conversations or can be challenging to have i mean so creating that space is a is a very valuable one i often recommend creating like a dei um you know a council ad hoc committee committee subgroup team circle and so on um mo you know most organizations that have you know evolved in their dei work all have some form of model as i've described um and you know you can tailor it for your own organization but a lot of how things get put into practice is via having a having a group that is um focused intentionally upon exploring these ideas however it's and and putting them into practice but it is pivotal that this group not be doing that in isolation um or find themselves uh you know just running with decisions judgment calls etc and not bringing the organization along with them which means that the way that you design your circle your counsel your committees is very pivotal to making sure that you are um inclusive and not exclusive even in the process itself which is kind of um ironic but you know spot on as well um i'm gonna i think i've only got time for one more question uh let's see so i've got one more question here that's asking me about um whether or not um whether or not i will be able to well so actually um as i think ann stated in the beginning that yes you will absolutely be receiving these um you know this as a recorded uh you know webinar as well um as a recording but i am the person that wrote um wrote the curriculum i am honored to do these um to do these trainings as well i do have a small cadre of extraordinary dei professionals who occasionally um weave in and share their perspective in regard to different modules within the workshops that i do but i not only have written have written the entire curriculum but i do also come and do the training myself as well so um i think i want to go ahead and pass it back to ann so that we have time for her to share in regard to more about the course structure and just to to wrap it up and bring us on home again it has been an absolute honor and privilege to join you all and talk about something that um that i think is extraordinarily important to us diversity equity and inclusion so thank you all okay thank you so very much um that was fabulous and i think it's so cool that your mom attended this webinar shout out shout out to jay's mom um so you know unfortunately with the video i don't think the audio is going to come through over go to webinar however since we'll be um this session has been recorded we will have the youtube um url for for this session that will be emailing to all the participants would it be okay to include um the youtube url to your video in that as well oh absolutely that would be wonderful and and hopefully everybody experience sharing it as a little bit of a recreation of it so yeah yeah okay perfect so everyone will be able to see it i'm sorry we just can't do it all together but we'll have to all be together in spirit when you view it yes yes okay um and hopefully you can just verify for vj can you see my screen that has your classes up yes i can okay wonderful so these are jay's wonderful classes and the the first class that you see there the diversity equity and inclusion demystified which is sort of the fundamentals that class is the class that maps to this webinar so this webinar that jay graciously gave us is sort of a little snapshot um to this one but of course the only thing better than an hour with jay is two days with jay um of course we should chop it up too everybody it's okay right right you know and it doesn't have to be two full complete days jay's very uh flexible she can do uh you know half days or seminars and if you i'm just going to scroll down here because for every class she has you can see that she has an outline and this is really just a jumping off point if you get jay on the phone with you she can go through figure out what you all need and then put together a perfect program for for your team for exactly what you need um so uh yeah that one maps to this one i don't know if you'd like to say anything about your your other ones because i i know they're really wonderful as well yeah absolutely thank you um you know and i i think actually during the webinar at times i referenced it so i'll just kind of um highlight so then we have the you know dei um the practitioner course which is the next the next course um and that basically as i said is really you know it's so often i talk i talk with them different leaders and corporations who are saying yeah you know we're embracing these values we get it we know it matters but putting it systemically into practice feels like a whole other process well um you know to some degree it is although it's all integrated together and so i really specialize in both i've done a you know a really expansive job of analyzing what are all the components and elements that are required in order to put it into practice and then as i've said i've worked with many um you know teams whether governmental corporate nonprofit in that process itself so this is the opportunity to join me as we work on you know work on that explore it and then i can support via the methodology and strategic approach that exists within the course um to help you go ahead and launch your initiative i'm secure in knowing that you have the best practices that are um emerging as tried and true and also to you know to really tailor it and intentionally make it your own um and then heart strides um you know which i you know really loved talking about earlier as well it's a very it's a more unique course because it is very much focused on that you know that exploration around dei heart strides again that's that mind and heart approach to social justice and specifically to dei um and so that process we really explore what are the you know the four pillars of the process and again not just well okay that sounds fabulous and wonderful but how does it get put into action and that's very elusive um concept to explore but very powerful and impactful when one can actually indeed um implement it and that's what the course is all about and then lastly we have also looking at like the bridge to um to global diversity you know i've had so many dialogues of course with you know corporations that are global in nature or even more notably looking to expand more globally and recognizing that you know cultural values morays etc are different from country to country city to city etc and so how do you then look at defining a culture of you know building out global diversity and recognizing that dei is relevant in that fashion as well but what are the kind of what are the steps or the approach that one can take to even create a strategic action plan that thoroughly incorporates um these values into your global approach to your work and so that is also defined there as well thank you so much for that explanation that's great great um all right well uh we're almost at the top of the hour um so i just really want to thank you again jay so much for this wonderful presentation and for everyone here for joining us um before i end it you'll you'll get a little um pop-up for a little evaluation and if you don't mind just taking a few minutes to fill it out we really do read everything we take it to heart and this is also a great chance for you to say what other webinar you might like um so if you've got another topic maybe somehow we could we can get jay to come back sometime and do something else or you know whatever whatever if you're looking for a class and you can let us know and um you know we can maybe set you up to talk with jay she's like i said she's really great at going in and finding out the heart of the matter and seeing what class would be perfect for you so that would be a great opportunity just you know let us know um and any other feedback that you have would be great as well and like i said we'll be sending you an email with this presentation and with the video um that that we were not able to see it at the beginning but we will in time all right so um well thank you everybody and thank you jay i'll go ahead and end this now and um we really appreciate everyone's time so have a great rest of your day everybody thank you all thank you thank you