EP41 DEIB doesn’t stop at talent attraction with Dr Jim Kanichirayil
ABCDEI
Welcome to another episode of ABCDEI, a podcast that explores topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion through stories of distinct and powerful lived experiences. Today, host Susan Diaz sits down with Dr. Jim Kanichirayil, self-described ‘professional megaphone’, who highlights innovation in DEIB, and HR tech. Susan and Dr Jim dive deep into 👇 📝 Why organizations that only look at talent attraction to solve the DEIB problem in the workplace are basically setting money on fire!! 📝 What we need to be thinking about from a people, process, and technology perspective across...
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EP40 Inclusive practices for every body type with Pamela Shainhouse
ABCDEI
Welcome back to a fresh season of the ABCDEI podcast. In this season co-hosts Susan Diaz and Rohini Mukerji present a 6-episode arc with in-depth episodes on different aspects of 2 core topics: intersectionality, and the return to workplace culture. In the first episode of the arc, Susan Diaz sits down with Pamela Shainhouse, Award-winning Certified DEI&B professional to tackle the former. Pamela is the Founder, President, and Creative Designer of Allistyle Inc., a size-diverse and sustainable fashion line named in memory of her daughter Alli. Allistyle highlighted the need for...
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EP39 Apologies, apathy and how to stay committed to the equity journey
ABCDEI
We’re back with a two-parter in which Susan Diaz and Rohini Mukherji, our hosts, touch on the state of the world as it relates to equity halfway through 2022. A State of the Union on where people are in the DEI journey as it stands at this moment in history. And while some things have changed, some things really haven’t changed at all. Susan and Rohini dive deep into: 📝 the Pope's apology for the actions of the Catholic Church towards the children of Indigenous peoples in Canada, and what lessons brands can take away from a reputation management and crisis communication perspective....
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EP38 Honouring your own intellectual property
ABCDEI
Today on ABCDEI we talk about intellectual property and how to honour it, as we build in public about some of our plans for the future for the body of work we’ve build through this podcast. But first a story you’ll find a story that was first told to us by Andrea Henry of henrybrookslaw.com Here are some snippets 👇 You’ll have to listen to the full story on the episode. “‘Black Girl Magic’ (the phrase) is a piece of intellectual property. But intellectual property cannot be claimed and owned by you, unless you have monetized it. So if the person who coined the phrase had...
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EP37 How to walk away like a Superhero
ABCDEI
Today on ABCDEI we talk about victim-blaming, victim-shaming and so much more as it relates to the workplace. Turn your attention to Simu Liu (the actor who plays “Shang Chi” in the Marvel Studios superhero movie) and how he walked away from Deloitte after a bad experience to become an actor and eventually the first Asian superhero in Hollywood. “He talked about a job termination when he used to work at Deloitte and the impact that it had on him, a decade ago. With the benefit and privilege of certainly the success he's had since then, but also the passage of time, how he's...
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EP36 - What does the inclusive ‘return to office' look like?
ABCDEI
ABCDEI is back after a short spring break! This season, we want to really feed into some of what we’ve built through great discussions and feedback. And focus on “conversation in progress”. And this year, no conversations have been more active than the ones around the return to the office! People back in offices in some part, and we're starting to see conversations around everything from whether the dress code changed now that we've seen everybody in pyjamas! Ie: Is the suit over? But more seriously… We spotlight an inclusion perspective on the subject. There is...
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EP35 How marginalized communities can take up more space
ABCDEI
Today Susan and Rohini are getting personal. What can we do to TAKE UP MORE SPACE? 💫💫💫 Here we are with the second of a two part-episode (Refer episode 33 if you missed part 1), in which we're talking about how to build the inclusion muscle and what are the things that go into the making of an inclusion habit. In the first part, we looked at it from the perspective of privileged, or the person who wants to be an ally. And today, we want to look at it from the perspective of the marginalized - whether by race, gender, physical ability, or sexual orientation. There's two...
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EP34 The profound calling of bridge-building in DEI with Martine Kalaw
ABCDEI
“I make a distinction between active allies, and passive allies. We've got a whole lot of great passive allies in organizations that are wanting to do something and thinking ‘But I don't know what to do!’ Active allyship can be facilitated through manager and management development. Managers all need management development. If you're listening and you don't have a management development program, that is a huge disservice to your managers right there. We know that managers automatically need to upskill themselves to be more effective. What I'm suggesting is DEI just becomes a way to pivot...
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EP33 Inclusion routines for the privileged
ABCDEI
We’re talking about building muscle today! Building routine is such a big part of the start of the year for many. And we wanted to bring that lens to inclusion work. Beyond our day jobs, our podcasting, and families, we - Susan and Rohini - are also both skincare nerds! As we were talking about that, we really found the analogy back to inclusion strong because it is about habit building. It is about changing the way you think about the world, the workplace, and your friends. Because skincare, folks, goes back to just doing the right three to five things. Rinse and repeat! Words,...
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EP32 Change hearts before minds with Victor Rampaderat
ABCDEI
“Here's something else that I realized which is very rarely brought into this conversation is we talk about white privilege and other privileges. Let's talk about economic privilege. It's really easy to become out of touch when you've started to gain economic privilege. And I know for myself, I've lived on both sides of the proverbial track. I've been poor, I've been wealthy. And at the end of the day, the problems that I face with money are very different than the problems I faced without.” - Victor Rampaderat, Founder of Discourse. Victor’s helps organizations build diversity...
info_outlineIn this curated episode we bring together 2 discussions. The first with Romesh Hettiarachchi, a commercial lawyer, and the second between Susan and Rohini on the microaggressions that compound and lead to many marginalized individuals' submissive reactions in the face of bias.
Romesh tells the story of when he was setting up his firm. He had a number of different directions to consider. The first was to name it after himself, and why he chose not to go that route. He details some of the non-financial factors of decision-making like comfort, fit, perhaps quite key, the ability to pronounce the name of the other person. He chose not to name the firm after himself and instead went with B&I - Business and Innovation. He also details the distinction between the legal name of an entity and a brand name in which you engage with clients. And why he often recommends a blended approach.
We talk about the cost of participation in the inclusion space is perceived as high. “What if I get that wrong? I would feel called out.” Even from something as simple as a name.
Then we move on over to the impact of microaggressions based on cliched biases, and learning the resilience it takes from marginalized folx to navigate that.
Many folx face bias on a daily basis. In the form of microaggressions. We've heard it described really well by a guest who was on The 4am Report podcast - Colin Druhan. He referred to microaggressions as paper cuts. So if someone has asked you to call them ‘they’ and you call them ‘she’ repeatedly there is a cumulative effect.
Susan talks of how she often asked for Indian recipes, particularly Chicken Tikka recipes. How she has cerebrally tried to work it out for herself saying,” Well of course they ask you that because you're a good cook. You talk about food often. You used to be a food blogger. And you shouldn't be offended by that.” But the fact remains if a relationship with her is purely reliant on someone asking her those cliched questions and they don't even know her well enough to know that she’s vegetarian, then she doesn't have to answer them.
Listen up to this very example-filled episode that will make you take a deeper look at the things you say and how you say them.
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