How to Address Racial Disparities

Episode 946: How to Address Racial Disparities, with Sara Taylor

podcast photo thumbnail
1x
-15
+60

00:00

00:00

View this episode on:

itunes
spotify
How to address racial disparities? Sara Taylor discusses creating a more inclusive workplace by knowing how to address racial disparities.

Sara Taylor earned a master’s degree in Diversity and Organizational Development from the University of Minnesota. She served as a leadership and diversity specialist at the University of Minnesota for five years and as director of diversity and inclusion for Ramsey County, Minnesota for three years.

Sara is the founder and president of deepSEE Consulting and has worked with companies as large as Coca-Cola, General Mills, 3M Company, AARP, and numerous others. She has a new book, “Filter Shift: How Effective People See the World,” that explores how our unconscious is actually making choices and decisions for us, all without our knowing — and how to change that. On top of that, she also knows how to address racial disparities and we’ll be talking about that in today’s episode.

how-to-address-racial-disparities

What you will learn from this episode about how to address racial disparities:

  • How Sara’s own experience as a white woman in a mixed-race family has helped drive her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion while also allowing her to know how to address racial disparities
  • Why Sara created a recent episode of her podcast around what she wishes she had known earlier about racial injustice, in an effort to process her own pain
  • Why Sara struggled with some of her own stories, and why we as humans naturally hold onto our pain and trauma
  • Sara shares an exchange she had with another small business owner that led to racist comments directed at her husband
  • How microaggressions can build up over time to create painful traumas that have lasting repercussions in our lives
  • How an episode of John Quiñones’s “What Would You Do” series titled “The Bike Thief” highlights how we all experience the world differently
  • Sara shares some of the shocking disparities and inequities that people of color experience in the United States
  • How our societal systems have created these inequities and have done exactly what they were designed to do
  • Why “equality” and “equity” aren’t the same thing, and why we should be pursuing equity, not equality
  • Sara explains and defines cultural competence, and she shares the five distinct stages of cultural competence
  • How to address racial disparities and what steps business owners can take to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace within their organizations

Resources:

Additional Resources:

 

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation, where I interview today’s top business owners so we can learn their recipe for success, how they built and scaled their business. In fact, my team at Predictive ROI, I’m sure you’ve heard me talking about it now. For the last several months, we’ve recently rebuilt our free resources section on PredictiveROI.com so you can download free practical and tactical guides for everything from how to build your own authority sales machine, everything from how to create your ideal client avatar, how to create and build out your value ladder, a sales funnel, how to make sure your content strategy aligns with the ten truths to what makes someone an authority within their niche. 

 

Just go to PredictiveROI.com/Resources and as always, everything you request. We will send it right to your inbox. 

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Sara Taylor’s Introduction

 

Before we welcome today’s very special encore guest Onward Nation. Her name is Sara Taylor. I wanted to share some words that were recently written by former United States President Jimmy Carter, because they’re profound, in my opinion, and really ties into the conversation that Sara and I are about to have.

 

So President Carter said, we all must shine a spotlight on the immorality of racial discrimination. But violence, whether spontaneous or consciously incited, is not a solution. Study humanizing people debases us all. Humanity is beautifully and almost infinitely diverse. The bonds of a common humanity must overcome the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. We’ve seen that silence can be as deadly as violence.

 

People of power, privilege and moral conscience must stand up and say no more to a racially discriminatory police and justice system. Immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks in government actions that undermine our unified democracy. We are responsible for creating a world of peace and equality for ourselves and future generations. We need a government as good as its people, and we are better than this.

 

End quote from President Carter, Onward Nation. I invited Sara Taylor to join us for this encore because she’s an advocate, an expert in a leading authority on the topics of diversity and inclusion. And she’s been that for the last 30 years. She’s the CEO of deepSEE Consulting and she and her family called Minneapolis, Minnesota home. Her depth of expertise is in helping business owners and leaders, just like you and me, build strong and inclusive companies that all of our stakeholders can be proud of: owners, your teammates, your clients, your vendors, your audiences, and the people within your community.

 

Well, after listening to Sara’s solocast, which we shared in last week’s E! Newsletter, but after listening to her solocast on her own podcast, which is entitled What’s the Difference in Being Impacted and moved by her words, her stories and the lessons she shared? I knew that her and I needed to have this encore conversation in front of you today.

 

So without further ado, welcome to Onward Nation. Sara. 

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Sara’s Path and Journey

 

Stephen, it’s so great to be here. Always, always. So great to have time with you. Well, it is a blessing and a privilege and an honor to have you here. I’m grateful for that. And before we dive into the questions and the lessons that I just feel compelled that we need to have this conversation in front of Onward Nation business owners.

 

Just share some additional context, if you will, behind the curtain for Onward Nation business owners. Just to give them some more context about you, your passing, your journey. And then we’ll dive in. Yeah, I actually grew up in a small town on a farm, rural Minnesota. Not a place that you would think a diversity consultant would come from. But I had a mother that brought differences into our home.

 

We constantly, even though I’m the youngest of ten kids, believe this. Just think of this, Stephen. Youngest of ten kids. We only had a girls room in a boys room. Just two bedrooms. Yet my mom still brought in international exchange students that would live with us from all over the world. So certainly it started there. But then I also lived in the Dominican Republic for four years as a Peace Corps volunteer and married my husband, who is Dominican.

 

We’ve been together now. This September will be 25 years. Wow. And, have worked in diversity and inclusion for, as you said, for over 30 years and started really with the practice as the practice was growing up. I have grown up with the practice and, in my own knowledge as well, coupled with my life experiences as a white woman living with a mixed race family, being a wife to a man of color, raising children of color, and having those experiences, have definitely fueled my passion.

 

And of course, my knowledge for the work that I do. Well, when you, when you started and you really candidly took your listeners, which I was then one of them on your solo case, you, you just candidly and transparently took people behind the curtain and the way that you structured the solocast, that was awesome and very revealing.

 

And you said what I wish I would have been taught, and you shared all of these lessons around that theme. So first, why did you decide to structure it that way? And then I would love for us to be able to go through some of those lessons for the benefit of our listeners, too. But first, why did you decide to structure it around what I wish I would have been taught?

 

You know, frankly, there’s some self-care that was involved in that because I was feeling so much pain. As I saw that video, I saw my husband, I saw my son’s eye. It was painful because it matched my lived experiences. I know that racism happens. And as painful as it was, I felt as though, what can I say, I’m a white woman.

 

What can I say? Honestly, I do not need to be adding my voice right now. At the same time, I had additional pain added from white friends and family that weren’t getting it, and I realized all of these years I’ve been doing this work for over 30 years, and there are ways that I have even been silent with my own friends and family.

 

And part of it was thinking about them as the audience and thinking about how I have this very, very different experience and they haven’t been able to have that. While they know my husband, they love my husband, they know my kids, they love my kids. They haven’t had this experience. So they haven’t been taught. And there was that piece, and it was also this just incredible frustration with what I know, how these systems perpetuate themselves.

 

It’s because we don’t teach this. It’s because we stay silent. And so it was really coming at both of those. And frankly, as your staff knows. And thank you for not revealing this. I had days that I was supposed to have turned over that solocast, and I just did it. I was just too raw. And, this was the only thing that I could essentially put forth with how I was feeling at the time.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Experiencing Difficult Stories

 

Well, in raw is such a good word, too, because as you shared those lessons and or the insights, the lessons that you wish you would have been taught. I thought, oh my gosh. I mean, like my heart ached as you walk through example after example. So were there some that were easier than others to share, or were they just all in this raw nerve kind of context?

 

Well, I think what ends up happening when you experience racism, even when you experience it second hand, as I have as a white person is, it’s part of the systems that perpetuate it is that there’s a silence around it. And so if you don’t share it that much and it just kind of goes under the surface and it just adds to a wound.

 

And I think any of them, once you call them up and once you call them up, especially in times of trauma, they’re very hard and even those that are far removed, we know that, I mean, even just think of your own experiences. We hold on to pain as much as we don’t want to.

 

As much as it’s not good for us, especially unresolved pain. So they were difficult. And in fact, I guess they were probably some of the, were more difficult because I had planned on sharing them and left them off the list. So there probably are some of those stories that are a little bit more difficult.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: An Impactful Story

 

So, I don’t mean to put you on the spot. But I guess I am. Would you mind sharing a couple and maybe not the ones that you didn’t share? Because I know you didn’t share them for your own reasons, but are there a couple that you think would be the most helpful and or impactful for Onward Nation?

 

Yeah, I can. Well, you know, very interestingly, Tuesday morning that we all woke up to those videos. I saw the video and, the video wasn’t clear that George Floyd had actually died, that he had actually been murdered. There was the hope that he was alive. I just saw the brutality. And then I went off to do the errand that I needed to do to pick up my computer.

 

Just a regular errand. So this literally happened. Within minutes of seeing the video I walked into the computer store where my computer was being repaired and wanted to make conversation with a fellow small business owner and was curious about how things are going for a fellow small business owner. I asked the owner as I was waiting. You know how, Covid had had impacted his business, and he went on, to tell me things about, Covid, and, in that, I won’t tell all of the things that he remarked about with Covid.

 

But he pointed to Miguel, who was my husband. My black Latino husband was in the car. That he could see through the door and said, you know, you know, I folks like that are dying more. Well, it’s because it’s because they don’t have they’ve they they’ve got, more melatonin. And we didn’t know that it was melanin.

 

They’ve got melatonin, they’ve got more melatonin. And so the sun can’t get in, and, so that’s why they’re dying. You know, you mean we can get it. We just go outside for ten minutes and we’ll be fine. Oh, boy. That’s why more of them are dying. Yeah. I honestly and this is the other piece that’s incessant with racism is you’re placed in situations where you’re thinking as me in that situation.

 

I just wanted to pick up my computer. I really don’t want to hear how you think my husband’s going to die because he’s got more melatonin and how you’re going to dismiss that. And in the midst of that, dismissing is the dismissal of systems of health inequities. It’s dismissing the fact that if you are a black person in this country, Covid or not, 

 

It’s just completely dismissing that, like, oh, it’s no big deal. Just that melatonin stuff. It just leaves you feeling like. And in the moment. I chose to not respond. It was too much for me. I did say, well, you know, it doesn’t really explain the health inequities that we have in general, but, you know, my computer was done, I picked up my computer, and I left.

 

That kind of situation happens regularly. I was also, one of the other stories that I, either, I don’t know, who knows if I unconsciously forgot or literally forgot to tell. But it was from a number of years ago. Miguel and I were. Miguel loves playing tennis. He is much, much better at it than I am.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Tennis Practice

 

I try to keep up. But we had dropped off one of our daughters at soccer practice. Had our other daughter with us. She was probably, you know, early teens at the time. And, we decided to go to a tennis court while we were waiting for the daughter that was playing soccer. And, so, you know, our youngest daughter, she wasn’t really able to keep up with us.

 

I mean, not that it’s that hard to keep up with me playing tennis, but she wasn’t able to keep up with the two adults. And so, Miguel said being the better tennis player of us and being the natural teacher that he is, said, you know what? Why don’t I just kind of run some drills with her?

 

And so he was running drills with her, and she was, you know, hitting the ball. And I was kind of going around the court just picking up the balls. And, the court was situated in, because the soccer fields that we had dropped my daughter off on was in a fairly wealthy neighborhood. The tennis court, a public court in the suburb that we live in, was situated in a very wealthy neighborhood.

 

So in Minnesota, you know, million dollar houses aren’t very common. Million dollar houses are nice mansions. So, you know, million dollar, $2.2 million houses. And that this court was situated in and the court was also situated in, essentially with a walking path that came like you around the court. And so as Miguel is working and kind of teaching drills to my daughter, and I’m going around picking up the balls, a woman approaches from one of the legs of the you.

 

And as she’s approaching walking her dog, an older white woman, she says, is he teaching? Is he teaching tennis lessons? And I thought, oh, she’s interested in tennis lessons. And for whatever reason, I didn’t say no, I just said, I guess I thought the explanation would be an explanation by saying no, she’s our daughter.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: A Situation on Microaggression

 

See, this is what happens with bias and stereotypes. Stephen. Yeah. What I know happens is that our unconscious can’t hear. It can’t take in information that contradicts the stereotype. So I said, she’s our daughter. And she said, well, he’s teaching lessons and he can’t teach lessons here. And then I realized she didn’t even hear me. And so this is where, you know, my diversity trainer hat comes on.

 

And for some reason, I decided to just kind of see how long it was going to take for her unconscious to kind of click in. And so I kept saying, she’s our daughter, he’s teaching lessons, and he can’t teach lessons. This is a public court. She’s our daughter. He’s teaching lessons, he’s got to go get a license and he’s got to pay a license.

 

And I bet he hasn’t paid for that license. She’s our daughter. Finally, by this time, Miguel was about ready to climb over the fence at her. And when she finally realized, I think Miguel probably said something to her. Yeah, I don’t remember exactly, but I’m sure it wasn’t something pleasant. And when she finally realized, then she said, well, I bet you’re not from here.

 

So I bet you don’t pay taxes, and you shouldn’t be on this court. And when she said that she was pointing at Miguel, she wasn’t pointing at me. Oh, my. It’s situations like that where it’s what we call microaggressions. It’s not something that, you know, we could call the police on. Not something that we could take her to court on.

 

That’s something that is legally bound with any kind of punishment. But one of my former consultants on our team would call them hand slaps. It’s like a little hand slap. And when you get a little hand slap, someone slaps your hand once. It’s not a big deal. But when they keep slapping that same spot over and over and over and over again, it gets raw.

 

And then what happens is someone just brushes against that spot and we can explode. Or what happens is you build a callus and you start to close off to almost every kind of interaction across different ones. Those microaggressions are little teeny traumas that add up, that then are called on when by our unconscious, when we see the big T kinds of traumas that we saw with the George Floyd murder if you shared that story.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: A Segregated Community

 

So now at the end of that story, I’m just shaking my head, for two reasons. One, an embarrassment that I giggled at a couple minutes ago is the way you’re telling the story, you know, and but then, or as you were telling the story. Excuse me. And then and now I’m shaking my head, thinking so awful and to think of like.

 

Because I’ve not walked in Miguel shoes, I don’t know. And which is why it is so important that you’re sharing this message now and why I asked you to join us for this encore. I wonder if this would be a good segue into the bike thief story? Yeah. Very definitely. Okay. Can you tell us that story?

 

Yeah. What we’re talking about here is, folks, we think that we all experience the world in the same way, but we actually don’t. And of course, we don’t consciously think that this is unconscious. We don’t consciously I don’t consciously say, of course. And you’ve had the exact same experiences as me. Of course not yet. If you tell me, oh my gosh, I went into such and such a store.

 

They were so awful and I’ve had wonderful experiences there. I say, oh, come on, Stephen, they’re great there because I’m relying only on my experiences and we don’t have opportunities because we still live in such a segregated society in the US. We worship in segregated congregations. We live in segregated communities. Our schools are very segregated, are really our only opportunity in many times is in the workplace, and many of our workplaces still haven’t figured out how to really bring us together across different, so we don’t know how others truly experience that is what was is so powerful about this John Quinones episode.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: The Bike Thief

 

If you know John Quinones, he is kind of like a modern day Candid Camera. And so he’s got the cameras hidden and he puts folks in situations. Usually there’s some actors involved. And in this particular one, the episode of Bike Thief. And if and please, I would encourage folks to, to Google that and Google, The Bike Thief.

 

There’s two versions of it and Google the one that is the older version that starts off with a white man in a blue t-shirt. If you’re if you’re googling and looking. So what he does is he puts three actors in the same situation, all young, all wearing, you know, essentially the same. Well, the men were sensually, the same kinds of clothes, and put them in the same park and the situation was that they were stealing a bike.

 

So they start with a white actor, a young white man, t -shirt, baggy shorts and a hat. And he is working on stealing this bike for over an hour, and no one stops. In fact, he even gets out, like, an electric saw to try to steal this bike. Like, no one stops. Yeah. Then they put in a young black man.

 

Same, you know, t-shirt, baggy shorts, hat. Within seconds, a crowd is there challenging him. You’re stealing that bike. What are you doing? Stealing that bike. We’re calling the police. A crowd of folks. So then, you know, they kind of talk to them, they clear the scene and try it again. Again? Within seconds, there’s a crowd of folks and what we see.

 

And then, of course, the last person is a young white woman. And folks, not only don’t stop her folks jump in to help her and even say, do you need help stealing that bike so I can be that young woman and say, you know what? What are they talking about? Stop people coming around and harassing you. I can be a young white man.

 

What do you mean? Talking about people coming around harassing you? Because it’s not our experience. And so our unconscious won’t believe it. So I don’t believe that others are going to have a different experience in the workplace. I don’t believe that others are going to have a different experience when they go shopping. I don’t believe that others are going to have a different, different experience if they’re stopped by police.

 

And so that’s what keeps us in these different loops and keeps even well-intentioned whites from really understanding what is happening and really understanding if we really understood the concepts of bias and what’s going on in our minds, and if we really understood the impacts of bias, really understood the disparities that exist across everything, across education, across health care, across housing, over and over again, if we really understood that and if we felt empathy at the intersection of those two, at the corner of understanding and empathy, there is pain.

 

There is so much pain. And that, I think, is why, as white folks, we want to stay away from looking. We want to stay away from understanding. We want to stay away from empathizing. People of color don’t have that privilege because they already know they’ve already felt it. And so they’ve been sitting in that corner of pain continually before, I ask you to share some recommendations, some insights with us on what you think business owners and leaders should do right now.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: A Situation on Disparities

 

I’d love to get some additional context from you, because I think it’ll be foundational. But let’s go into some of the disparities. You did share some of those during your solocast in. Candidly, I was shocked. I wouldn’t have even been able to guess that the disparities are that severe. And so I walked away feeling ignorant that I still have so much to learn.

 

Which, again, is another reason for this conversation. Can you share some of the disparities? Because it’s just staggering. Yeah. And I don’t have my list in front of me. So let’s just see how many I remember. I will only list, I’m sure, a fraction if you are black, you will be perceived as not having pain when you express pain, so you will receive less pain medication.

 

Your healing will be longer in health care settings. If you are black, you will live seven years less than if you are white. 256 Black Americans die every day. That would not have died if there were no health care disparities. If you are black and a student, you are more likely to be punished for the exact same behavior as your white student colleagues.

 

Black students in a study with teachers. Since we’re talking about education, a study with teachers that puts teachers behind a two way mirror and asks them to pick out the best behavior, all the good behavior as soon as they can, as much as they could, and then they track their eye movements. And they watched when they were asked to look at good behavior, they watched the white kids.

 

When they asked, we’re asked to track them. And, jot down as much bad behavior and as soon as they could, they watched the black kids. These were teachers that were black and white, and the students were preschoolers. It was shocking. Let’s think, economics, whites much more. I believe it is four times more wealth than blacks.

 

And and on and on. The average average professional of color makes less than the average white person with a high school education. Now, if you went to the police, you’re three times more likely to be killed by police if you are black. And again, these are just a fraction of the list of disparities that we could go on and on and fail podcast after podcast. 

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Creating Equitable Systems

 

So in your opinion, share some insights here with us that so Onward Nation as you know is composed of business owners and leaders. So what should business owners and leaders do right now to start to change some of the disparities to make this? And I don’t know, it sounds so bad for me to say to make this better, as I’m sure that’s not the right word.

 

But how do we actually affect change? Well, I don’t know that that’s a bad word because it certainly shouldn’t get worse. And yeah, better and equitable. What can we do to make it equitable? We’ve got to address the systems. The systems are what create the disparities. And as quoted about systems, systems are perfectly designed to produce the results that they produce, not intentionally designed, not designed to create the best results.

 

But our system systems have created these results. I saw, image that was posted on social media of a black man with a placard on him, like a sign on him that said the system isn’t broken. It was designed to do this. And in many ways, that’s the case. We’ve got to get to the systems and we’ve got to create equitable systems.

 

So within our businesses, what are the systems? What are our systems of hiring? What are our systems of promoting? What are our systems of acknowledging, the acknowledging folks? What are our systems of utilizing the vendors that we utilize, what are our systems of reaching out in the community and reaching out to diverse markets? But those systems that we’ve got to look at and we’ve got to move from thinking about it as, I need to have equality and move to equity.

 

A very distinct difference there. Equality is doing the same thing for everyone. So if we, let’s just take that 256 black Americans die every day. That wouldn’t die if there weren’t health care disparities. So we say equally, okay, one less person is going to die every day. White and black. Okay. That’s an equal approach. But you’re still stuck with more black Americans dying every day.

 

Equitable would be to say, we’re not going to have that disparity. It’s looking at the gap. So really looking at your gap, look at, as a small business, if you can look globally and say, oh, great. You know, folks love working here. They say we’re an inclusive workplace. Well, look at the gap between how people of color respond to that question and how whites respond to that question.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: We Need to Start Seeing Some Progress

 

Look at the gap between where folks are in the organization. Lower parts of the organization versus leadership. Look at the gap of how folks aren’t promoted. Look for those gaps and identify ways that you can provide equitable solutions. Now, what’s the challenge? We can’t actually provide equitable solutions until we’ve built our cultural competence. We have to have a new ability, a new skill set, a new mindset in order to actually approach our systems from that equitable perspective.

 

So if you kind of walk it backwards, the system is that end goal. In order to get that system that has changed, we’ve got to be focused on equity and to focus on equity. We’ve got to develop our cultural competence. So that’s where folks can start. And that is something that can be done needs to be done on an individual level.

 

I need to know where I am. What is my stage of development, how am I being controlled by my unconscious? And then what do I need to do to develop to be more effective, to be able to approach things from an equitable perspective and to not be controlled by my unconscious? Well, the good news with that, it’s the bad news is it’s a step away from dealing with the systems.

 

But the good news is that it gives us something individually to actually see the progress that we’re making, because we need to now start seeing progress. We know how human behavior works. If a problem was addressed and we don’t see progress, then we all throw up our hands and say, oh, I’ve seen. So that was just too hard to fix, I guess.

 

So we’ve gotta start seeing some progress. We’ve gotta start identifying some, some wins. The challenge for us as small businesses, though, is to not have those just be superficial wins. Yes. And if they are superficial wins, at least to say, okay, we know this is superficial, but this is all we can do right now. We’re working on something more systemic so that it’s at least expressed.

 

And folks know this is important to us, and we are working to become a more inclusive and equitable organization. I mean, think of how wonderful it would be. I think about it for myself all the time. I always have how wonderful it is to be able to say I have an inclusive, equitable organization. I have an organization where folks feel as though they can bring their whole self.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Cultural Competence

 

How wonderful it would be if we could all say that, wow. Okay, so I’m getting notes down in my journal here thinking of next questions to ask you. That was so awesome to take us into cultural competence because I love it here also for Onward Nation to have a foundation here. It sounds like a very important term.

 

Can you define it for us, please? Yeah. And you know, folks typically think, okay, that’s like, do I kiss power and shake hands. Right. If I’m in Japan, I bow. And if I’m in France, I kiss on the cheek. No, it’s much more complex than that. It is about how our unconscious is taking in the world around us, how our uncanny bias is explaining and evaluating people and the interactions that we are having with them, and how our unconscious is deciding for us how we’re going to respond.

 

And so cultural competence lays out actually five stages of these progressively more effective skill sets and mindsets. So in the first three stages our unconscious is completely in control. And unfortunately that’s where about 85% to 90% of a typical organization is in those ineffective stages. And it’s not until we’ve done that intentional work to get in front of our unconscious that we’re able to see and respond to the complex city of differences, to see the differences that are making a difference in every situation and respond to them to be our most effective selves, respond to them to create a more inclusive workplace and to create more equitable solutions.

 

But going back to it, it’s not, you know, folks typically think about, okay, we’re going to do this, particularly white folks, okay, we’re going to do this, you know, to feel good. We’re going to do this to help out those marginalized folks. And yes, we ought to be, thinking about ways to address marginality and so forth.

 

But even if folks would just take it from an incredibly selfish perspective, this is about your effectiveness, your effectiveness as a leader, your effectiveness as a business owner, your effectiveness as a person. How effective are you, if nothing else, let that be your motivator. So when you said superficial wins, I literally wrote that in my journal because and I understand what you’re saying, that, you know, if that’s all, then, you know, I understand that that is still progress, but it is superficial.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Turning It into A Lasting Change

 

So how can, I don’t know if this is the right way to phrase it, but how can business owners I mean, there’s thankfully so much heightened awareness today. There’s conversation finally. And how do we not let that fade away? And as President Carter expressed and what I shared in the intro, how do we turn this into lasting change?

 

What are some of the things that business owners can do in order to arrive at inclusive and equitable businesses, so that that doesn’t fade away when the news cycle ends? Because that would be a shame, obviously. Yeah, exactly. Well, like other areas within our businesses, we make it a part of our values. We make it a part of who we are, not just something that we’re going to do.

 

We want to make it a part of our identity as an organization versus a task that we’re checking off on the list. How do we make these things a part of our identity as an organization? We add them to our values and we live our values. We add them to our systems and we live with those systems.

 

So it is really thinking about it as an identity of our organization versus, okay, we’re just going to do it. And then we’ve, we’ve done it or gosh, we can’t, we can’t do it. So just too hard, I think just continually asking ourselves every day what would the leader of an inclusive organization do in this moment?

 

What would the leader of an equitable organization do at this moment? Great decision. Would an inclusive leader make this moment? What questions does an inclusive leader make at this moment? Because that’s about our identity. I’m associating myself with an inclusive leader. I want to be that inclusive leader. So I am going to sit there and I’m going to take that on as my identity, not just as a task that I’m going to do one day and then skip over it.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Responsibilities of an Inclusive Leader

 

That is so fantastic. Because so that’s candidly, it’s a mind shift, even for me, because as you were even just it’s like this is now becoming a little bit of self-awareness here, even the way that I was asking you in that question, it implies that there ought to be, like, a little checklist. Right? And it’s not a checklist, obviously.

 

Right. It’s hard to get away from just being a business owner or a leader. Anyway, because that’s kind of how we get through the day, right? As we check things off, and we set goals and we get to those as we reach those goals. So it’s easy to fall into that. Anyway, and I think even more so within diversity and inclusion, you know, even since the George Floyd murder, we have had more folks calling us, but it’s so discouraging to me because many of them calling us asking for our services are basically saying, okay, we realize now that this is an issue, we’ve tried to do this before. 

 

And so now, you know, can you come in and, can you do a quick webinar for us as if that’s going to solve it? Right. And so, you know, that’s not what an inclusive leader would say. That’s not what an inclusive leader would look for. An inclusive leader would look for a longer term. And so it is easy to fall back to that checklist.

 

Now, that’s so inherent in how we approach our day to day lives. Know what are the things I need to accomplish today? You know, this conversation has helped me see how that is grossly inadequate and so very inappropriate. It’s actually as I’m thinking about my own kind of mindset here. Like, I’m a bit ashamed that that’s where I went and how I frame the question and I’m really super grateful for the way that you instructed just there because that was powerful.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: Learning From the Lesson

 

Yeah, you’re very welcome. I, first of all, I’m not big on shame. I would say, you know, maybe critique ourselves if we don’t learn when the lesson is presented and, versus, you know, critiquing ourselves because we didn’t know in the first place. And I think that’s so critical when it comes to diversity and inclusion, because one of the things that inhibits people from digging into this work is a fear that it’s going to be about shame and blame.

 

And, you know, I’m going to find out how I’ve been doing things that are racist. I’m going to find out I’ve been doing things that, you know, I was sticking my foot in my mouth and that can hold us back. And so, you know, really just kind of taking it from the perspective of gratitude of, yeah, now I do have that information.

 

I didn’t have that information. And coming back to it, you know what I wish I would have been taught? It’s one of those things that I wish I would have been taught and not beating myself up that I wasn’t taught, but being grateful for the fact that now I know again, this is why I think it was just so masterful the way that you framed that conversation with your audience around those lessons.

 

And so just a really brilliant job and really brilliant here today, Sara. And thank you very much. Before we go, before we close out, because I, because I know we’re quickly running out of time, please, please tell Onward Nation business owners the best way to connect with you. 

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

 

How to Address Racial Disparities: How to Connect with Sara

 

I am on LinkedIn, Sara Taylor on LinkedIn, but also connecting with me through my company, deepSEE Consulting.

 

So connecting Sara at deepSEE Consulting, and that is s e deep se. I am also on Twitter @deepSEESara. So again, that’s deepSee Sara. And without an h. And my book actually, if I can just plug in my book also, Stephen, because my book lays out those stages of development that I was talking about and lays out a framework for how to actually move through those stages.

 

So that book filters shift how effectively people see the world. And that’s also available both on filtershift.com, what’s available anywhere folks want to get a book, and anywhere that folks go to get their books. But also available on filtershift.com and on deepseeconsulting.com okay Onward Nation. No matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and relisten to Sara’s words of wisdom and take her smarts and put those into action, I encourage you to not just listen and take notes, but to actually take action on what she so generously shared with you today.

 

And Sara, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day, and I am grateful, my friend, that you will come back to the show to teach and share your insights and wisdom. These very important lessons, obviously, help us move our businesses toward being inclusive and equitable workplaces. Thank you so much my friend. You are very welcome and thank you.

 

My gratitude to you for including me. Very much appreciate being able to have the conversation. This episode is complete, so head over to Onwardnation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Schedule a consultation and learn how to address racial disparities within your organization

Fill Your Sales Pipeline Q&A

LIVE Wednesdays at 1:00 pm Eastern / 12 Noon Central

Reserve Your Spot
Sell with Authority Podcast

The Sell with Authority Podcast is for agency owners, business coaches, and strategic consultants who are looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality.

Listen Now!

Follow Us