Season 1 Episode #5: Eliminating Bias & Discrimination

Diversity Matters with Oscar Holmes IV

Season 1 Episode 5

Episode Title: Eliminating Bias and Discrimination 

Guest: Dr. Dolly Chugh

 

Diversity Matters with Oscar Holmes IV is a podcast that explores all things diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related. In each episode, Oscar and his guests have lively discussions around DEI topics, explore the latest research on the topic, and discuss the implications so that listeners will be more knowledgeable about the topics and be able to apply the insights to their lives.

 

Show Summary: In this episode, Dolly Chugh, an award-winning tenured professor at the New York University Stern School of Business & the author of the book The Person You Mean to Be, shares why she decided to write a book & the challenging process behind it. As a big book fan, it has always been her dream to be an author.

 

She also explains why being a good-ish person helps not only herself but also the people around her. It protects other people by preventing her behavior from affecting them negatively which is discussed in her book. Being perfect is impossible but owning your mistakes makes you a better person. 

 

She explains how psychological processes are relevant to the biases of gender, race, sexual orientation & gender identity. Her TED talk showed relevance to people from different parts of the world as she discussed this. She received various comments & emails expressing their empathy, which surprised her.

 

Description: Nobody is perfect. Perfection in your ethical character is a myth but you can always improve. Owning your mistakes is difficult but it helps you be a better person than you were yesterday.

 

Always be kind. You never know what the person in front of you is going through. Be the bigger person and do the right thing.

 

Guest Contact & Promos: 

 

Facebook

Twitter

Website

The Person You Mean To Be

Amazon Link

Independent Book Store Link 

Dr. Dolly Chugh Ted Talk: How to let go of being a good person and be a better person. 

Dr. Dolly Chugh Forbes.com A Guide to Juneteenth

3 Value Bombs:

 

 

• Shift your attention from always trying to protect yourself and think about what you can do to protect others by getting better.

 

• I'm setting a high standard for myself that I'm going to always try to do better and learn from my mistakes.
• I think that with organizations right now, it's like the house is on fire, but we're just trying to put the fire out and figure out where the fire started and why it keeps burning.

Show Highlights: 

 

Can you tell us a bit about the journey from the idea phase to the actual published book. What was that like?

 

2:33 Dolly 

 

• Yeah, well, you know, I think I'm just a big book fan like fangirl authors and books ever since I was a little girl. So it's always been a dream to contribute to the world of books in some way. But as researchers, as you know, we publish in peer reviewed journals, and we do work that other scholars can consume and build on and create sort of additional knowledge based on what the work we do is incremental, but we don't speak to general audiences as much.

 

One of the phrases that I love from your book is this idea of being a “Good-ish” person. Explain to us what you mean by that.

 

5:17 Dolly 

 

• Well, I think it comes from a place of frustration with myself, honestly, like, you know, I was raised in a home where it was emphasized to be a good person and do the right thing. And I would try to do that. And time and time again, I would notice myself doing things like why did I just cut that person off in traffic? Or, you know, why am I hoarding supplies during a pandemic, like you see behaviors in yourself?

 

What would be some of your responses in terms of what's typically been studied in terms of diversity from an international perspective and any thoughts that you have on some of that research?

 

21:39  Dolly

 

• Absolutely. Yeah. Maybe I should have prefaced my last answer to say, I think what I study is the psychology of these things as opposed to any specific bias. And so like my book is actually surprising to me because I thought it kind of had a US focus in the examples. But the psychology of it does have a more universal applicability. And in the book, I talk about all sorts of biases from a gender, we talk about race, we talk about sexual orientation, we talk about gender identity, we talk about a lot of different biases.

 

• That isn't to say that there aren't cross cultural phenomena at work as well that I'm not deeply fluent in, but I've been surprised to know, get emails from emails or reviews online of the book. I have a TED talk that's related to the book and the TED Talk. As you know, Ted Talks sort of just that's like its own global phenomena, comments in the views are definitely coming from all over the world.

 

What advice can you give people who are the only one in an organization and who often feel invisible or misunderstood?

 

23:51 Dolly

 

• Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, so glad Leslie is naming that, you know, I think that is actually the first piece of advice I would give Is to, to not internalize what it must feel like at times in those roles because you could internalize a feeling of somehow, you know, being the only one means I don't belong or I, because I don't match the prototype. That means I don't meet the standard that could easily happen.

 

• She has a wonderful little five minute video clip that I use when I teach, where she talks about sponsors versus mentors. And I think one of the things when you're the only one in an organization, you want to start looking for who those sponsors are going to be people who she says when you're not in the room or arguing on your behalf are sort of opening doors for you. Not everybody's going to be that person.

 

How would you recommend people confront microaggressions when they are in positions of unequal or lesser power?

 

26:41 Dolly

 

• Well, so that's such an individual question. First, it's not your job to do it. So you shouldn't feel you have to is I think the first thing I think there's this sort of double whammy that comes with when you're on the receiving end of a microaggression so already Whammy number one receiving & the microaggression.

 

Do you think that the increased use of militarization against immigrants by the current administration has impacted Americans' views of diversity, particularly with respect to people of color in the US?

 

30:17 Dolly

 

• I suspect Yes, I haven't seen data on that. But my gut says it's probably created two effects in opposite directions, like the increased militarization, I think, has a real dehumanizing component to it. I think on the one hand, it's sort of maybe creating this, like a sense of diversity is the problem somehow, as opposed to the opportunity and that the systems are the problem and the bias is the problem.

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