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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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....
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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,...
info_outline
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_outline“It's a profound thing to offer an apology. An apology is not dependent on forgiveness and has no excuses. An apology is me humbly coming to you and saying, “Oh, I see that I've hurt you; that I was inappropriate in some way.” And by the way, I may not have intended to hurt you. I may not even agree that it was something for which you should feel hurt. But that's not the concern of the apology. The apology is merely recognizing that you feel hurt based on something I did or said. I want to own own your pain, and apologize for it” - Shari Foos
To kick things off this year, we have with us Shari Foos, Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of The Narrative Method.
Shari’s point of view on inclusion was honed while studying Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. The program was conceived as a way to teach empathy to doctors. “There was a huge perspective about social justice, and what does it mean for someone to speak for a patient and you can extrapolate that to what does it mean for anyone to tell someone else's story. And so I have always been a big fan of the group process since I was a teenager, when I was depressed and found myself in group therapy. And what was so powerful that and I see to this day is that as important as one-on-one relationships are, they cannot simulate a good family the way a group can. And when everyone is nodding, because they understand what you're saying, you feel normal, you feel good, you feel you belong. So that's why I decided to take all of the work I had done, and create a group process where people could have meaningful conversations, without small talk, based on inspirational art, or videos or music or something that evokes a prompt, and then they'll go into smaller groups and discuss those prompts. Or in the case of writing groups, they write about them.” - Shari Foos
Here’s some of what Susan and Rohini discuss with Shari
“We're natural storytellers, based on the professional lines that we have chosen (as marketers and PR leaders), but our ‘why’ came from a personal and painful experience and the urge to make sure that doesn't happen to somebody else, or the urge, perhaps for somebody else to learn from the hard soul searching work that we had done”
- Rohini Mukherji 3:53
“What Shari said about that “squeaky wheel” kid usually being the creative kid stood out for me. I have a 10 year old daughter and she's definitely curious and challenging. She's very, very creative. I say often, well you're lucky, you're in the right place to be that squeaky wheel. I'm listening closely because I want to encourage that creativity. Because for me, the environment was much more “Don't ask too many questions. Be seen and not heard.” The person who's telling a story is being brave. How do we make make them more comfortable?”
-Susan Diaz 8:03
For that and more on empathy, apologies, creating safe spaces. Listen to the episode!
If you’re a return visitor, drop us a 5-star rating? Please.