Have you ever worked in a place where you felt like you didn't belong?

Maybe you were the only one in the room who looked like you, thought like you, or came from your background.

Today's guest believes that inclusion isn't about policies or posters on the wall.

It's about daily leadership practices that say you matter, you are seen and you are heard.

I'm joined today by Jonathan Stutz, the co author of the daily practices of inclusive leaders.

We go deep into the six daily practices that inclusive leaders live by, not occasionally, but intentionally every single day, you'll hear how courageous conversations, genuine curiosity and simple acts of empathy can transform culture.

This is not just a conversation about diversity, it's a conversation about humanity and how each of us can lead in a way that helps others to feel like they belong.

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project.

I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Jonathan Stutz.

Jonathan is the president of Global Diversity partners and the co author of a book about diversity called the daily practices of inclusive leaders, the daily practices of inclusive leaders and about how to create a culture of belonging, the daily activities of leaders that lead to this place where people feel that they belong.

And I don't want to steal any of Jonathan Stutz, so I want to leave it there.

There's going to be wonderful practical tips in today's conversation that can help you create an amazing culture in your organization.

So Jonathan, without any further ado, I'd love to hear from you tell us about a little bit about your background, but I'm most importantly curious to know what inspired you to do the work that you do and to write this book?

Thanks.

Thanks, Mick, and I appreciate being on the show and being part of The Leadership Project.

Yeah, I have been, gosh, let's see.

I started a was born in Toronto, Canada, and at a very young age, we moved to Atlanta, Georgia during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and that experience really affected me, because at that time there was I experienced discrimination, anti semitism, I experienced.

I saw racism, and I even like as a kid, you know, in my in my friends parents, cars, carpooling to, you know, Pop Warner Football games, Little League football, I would hear the N word being used.

I would hear black people being referred to as coons.

Yet in my own home, that was not how I was brought up.

We were a very progressive family coming from Canada, one of the most international and diverse cities in the world, and it would just, it just stuck with me.

And I was raised in a philosophy of what's called tikkun olam, which reflects philosophy of you when you come into this world, it's broken, and you have a responsibility to make it a better place before you leave to literally, like repair the world, help repair the world.

And so with this in mind, I developed a strong conscience of social equity, social justice.

And as I grew and went to school and Political Science and Leadership roles in my community, volunteering on political campaigns.

I've always worked towards this idea of equity and social justice.

What inspired me to write the book is I've been doing this work for 25 plus years, and what we found is that, with my co author, that there's a lot of great books out there on this topic, and they are about strategy.

They're about why it's the right thing to do.

And folks that work with us and the trainings that I do, they'll say, Hey, I get it.

But what do I do on a day to day basis?

What do I actually do to create this culture of belonging, where everyone feels included, they feel they can, they're supported and valued?

And so this was the gap that we sought to fill, was to give people, what do you do on a daily basis, the little things that you can do every day, to send the message that you know this is a culture where you can make an impact for who you are and your personal experiences and what you're about.

So it's been a lot of fun.

The book is organized by the employee life cycle, and that is a way for folks to literally use it as a guide.

If they're hiring people or recruiting or doing on working on promotions or talent development, they can literally go to that section of the book and know little things that they can do, not every day, not every minute, but, you know, two to three times a week, things that they can do to, you know, build this culture of belonging, we call it dropping inclusive pebbles, little things you do to create a ripple.

Those ripples over time, inspire other people to drop pebbles.

And drop these inclusive pebbles, and that creates a wave that eventually builds to shift the culture to one where everyone really feels this is a place they could succeed in the long haul.

Well, they're really good, Jonathan, and I'm hearing three powerful things there.

First of all, that you saw the injustice in the world of where we do see the opposite, or all the things that you're looking to inspire here, I see that you saw a gap that where I'll be agree with you here, that there is a lot of documentation out there.

There's a lot of things, but when someone wants to be an ally, when someone wants to do something different, it's not always clear as to what the first step is so and how to bring it to life.

So this idea of daily practices has really caught my attention, and then this ripple effect that these micro actions can have a big rippling effect across your organization and across your culture, not not just in your business, but in your community, in your in your society.

So that's really powerful, all right?

So I've got some things I really want to get into here.

First of all, you call it inclusion, diversity and equity, right?

So ID&E, like everyone else is calling it DE&I, tell me why you and your co author, why you're emphasizing ID&E rather than DE&I?

Right, And we've been doing this for a long time, long before, you know, DEI became under attack in the most recent US administration, and more recently, by the political right here in the US generally.

So we've always prioritized inclusion.

And the reason is, if you think of it as a metaphor of your home, and when you invite people into your home, you want to make sure it's warm and welcoming.

You may cook some good cookies or some good food.

It makes the house smell good.

You clean, you create a place where people can feel safe and warm and welcome, and that it's an inviting place that people want to stay.

So the same is true of your companies and organizations, profit, nonprofit.

Anywhere you are in the community, you want to create an environment where people really feel included, they feel welcome, they feel they can be seen, heard and valued and supported.

So that's the priority.

And because if you don't, if you just focus on increasing the diversity of your workforce and bringing in people from different backgrounds, and you don't focus on inclusion first, they'll come right in the front door of that home and go right out the back door.

We call it a leaky bucket in our work.

So you want to create that inclusive culture and really prioritize that.

So putting the I before the D and the E is really an intentional way of saying inclusion is really critical.

So everyone, no matter your background, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, you all feel this is an inclusive place that you can, yeah, you feel safe and welcome.

All right, so I think we're kindred spirits on this one, Jonathan, I have a saying that diversity is useless unless it's coupled with inclusion.

What you know, all you're doing is tokenism.

You're counting numbers of oh, look at how representative we are of community.

But what if those diverse voices that you've just invited into the room, what if they're not heard?

What if they don't feel like they belong?

But even if they don't find the exit door.

If they're just sitting there and no one is taking the time to truly listen to them, then all of that diversity was, I'm going to call it a waste of time.

In fact, they will feel devalued rather than valued, and you're missing out on the richness of the experiences that you brought into the room.

How does that sit with you?

What if they find the exit gate?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And this all starts with the leader.

You know, as you often talk about in the leadership project, it all starts with a leader.

In some ways, we're all leaders, right?

We can all contribute to creating a culture of belonging, but the person who's in the authoritative position of leading teams, it's really incumbent on them if they want to build and who doesn't want to build a high performance, highly effective team, is to create a connection with each one of your direct reports, each one of your employees.

And so, you know, one of the daily practices that I talk about in the book is this creating an inclusive one on one.

And you know, one on one meetings, you meet with your employees maybe every week for half hour, every two weeks for 45 minutes.

That's what I recommend, that spending time getting to know them at a deeper level, understanding who they are, what they're about, what skills, abilities, they bring to the table, life experiences beyond just what's on their resume or what's what's required in the job description, really creating a environment where you connect with them, and for leaders to do that where employees open up and feel comfortable sharing about themselves again, it starts with the leader being vulnerable.

Empathy starts with the leader being vulnerable, sharing about themselves.

You know, I always say, you know, none of us can be 100% at work every day.

We all have things going on in our lives, personally, babies being born, parents getting sick, people going through a divorce, a tough time, even as simple as maybe getting a speeding ticket on the way to work, just challenges that we all face, and as a result, none of us can be 100% so when leaders can show their vulnerability, of their humanity, of who they are, it could.

Creates a opportunity for employees to see that and see that.

Hey, my leader is being vulnerable with me.

If I share what's going on in my life, they're going to get it.

They're going to have empathy.

They're going to have understanding.

They're going to support me, and especially if they're talking that talk that let's say you've got something going on in your family and you need to go for a special event or an emergency, and they say, Nope, families first take care of that.

That's the most important thing.

That sends a message.

That's another pebble you're dropping, that you care about them.

You have compassion.

And this connects people to their leaders.

And the benefit is is that folks and the impact is that folks will be more loyal, to be more committed, they'll give more of themselves, and that safety allows folks to share, take more risk, be more creative, and that's great for the organization as a whole, and to lead to greater innovation and higher levels of productivity.

So it's really a win, win all

Yeah, really good, Jonathan, once again, three around for everyone.

takeaways here, and I'm going to share a story along the way here, around that diversity of thought, diversity of experience, to help you with your business and to help solve problems.

I worked for a company for a decade and a half.

Actually, have to admit or worked there for a long time, where when I first joined the company, and it did change over time, but when I first joined the company, the entire board of that company, the comics, the Executive Committee of the company.

Not only were they middle aged, white Frenchmen, or was a French company, they all went to the same university, every one of them.

So if they've got a problem to solve, how are they going to get any kind of diverse ideas on how to problem solve if they're all taught by the same professors.

That was something that's always stuck with me, and it did evolve.

They introduced diversity into that leadership structure over time, but initially it wasn't there.

The second thing I'm hearing there is around this empathy and vulnerability, if we want to create a speak up culture where people are willingly going to share something of themselves that starts with us, we need to role model it, to show them that it's okay, it's okay to share something of yourself, share your experiences, share your thoughts, share who you truly are.

And then the third one that caught my attention was an inclusive one on one, and I'll tell you why it caught my attention.

When a lot of us picture inclusion, we think about a group environment that's in a bit of a huddle, and there's someone on the outside of the huddle, and we're going, oh, let's invite them in.

That's inclusion.

But what I heard from you is inclusion starts with our one on one engagements.

So let's talk about that a little bit more two questions.

I don't normally ask two questions at once, but two questions at once.

What does inclusion look like to you?

And I want you to also give us a bit more detail about what does an inclusive one on one conversation look like?

Great.

Well, to me, you know, we, all of us, have a basic human need to feel seen, heard, valued and understood.

So to me, inclusion means that you can, and you can do this on and this kind of gets to your your, you know, your other question is, is, you know about the the one on one meeting?

What does it look like?

I mean, it's simple things that sound almost, you know, trite or trivial, then the fact that you know, showing up on time.

You're telling the person you're sending in a message that you're important to me, you know, and I'm going to make time for you, and I'm going to be on time.

The second thing is, is to make sure it's happening on a regular basis.

So scheduling it on this weekly or bi weekly basis, and making it a priority, to be there and to have it on the calendar.

And then if, for some reason, as things happen, things come up, don't just cancel it, but reschedule it for later in the week, again, letting your folks know that it's important.

Another thing you can do is get out of the office so often, you know they're in this kind of structured environment where you're sitting in your manager's office and having a one on one.

Why not shake it up every once in a while and go for a cup of coffee or take a walk together around the building or out, you know, just, just have it, make it more casual and relaxed, so that folks do feel more comfortable sharing and you're kind of connecting with them having coffee or breaking bread together.

You know, that creates a connection as well.

And you can talk about things other than work.

You know, one of the better managers I had over the years Microsoft was a guy by the name of Jack Leary.

And Jack used to talk about, you know, we don't have to talk about work during the one on one.

We can talk about what we did on the weekend, what our hobbies are, our interests.

And I love that he was, he wasn't.

You could see when he talked about it that, you know, like, is this, is this kind of, almost an engineered, you know, to to open up, but, but it worked because it gave me again permission, because I don't always just want to talk about work.

And I, like Jack, he was an interesting guy.

I wanted to get to know him more.

And so I got to know him better.

He got to know me better.

And.

Just felt like he understood you and he would have your back, and that's what you want to create in the you know, this inclusive culture is also about you've got your back.

I've got my back.

And so it's looking out for your manager, but it's, it's them looking out for you too.

I always say that, you know, when I'm working for somebody is my job is to make them successful and figure out what that looks like.

How can I you know, they always say there's a saying like, if two people agree all the time, one of them is unnecessary.

And I think it's important to recognize that you bring something to the table as well.

Your manager may be more senior than you have more experience, but you bring things to the table that they don't have.

That's why you're on the team.

That's why you're a part of the group.

That's why he, he or she hired you.

They are.

They're needing you.

And so therefore you can teach your manager things too, as well as your man.

You learning from your manager.

So the inclusive one on one also is about the manager not setting the agenda.

I like the idea that this is the employees time, and so they set, they drive the agenda.

Certainly, managers will have things to cover occasionally, or they'll have a list as well, but put it on the man on the employee to come in with a list of things to do, to talk about, and it shouldn't be this is another thing about a really good one on one, is it shouldn't be just status on how I'm doing on this project or that project.

It should really be about what you need help with?

You're, you're going to this person, almost as a consultant for advice.

What issues or challenges are you facing?

Um, either with people, a process, systems, projects, where you can really leverage their help and let them know they're you just need to do I just need to listen to you.

Or do you actually want me to do something?

So those are just some of the elements that I can share here.

There's plenty more in the book.

Yeah, really good, Jonathan, I do encourage people to get the book.

It's full of golden nuggets of things that you can do, to take action.

And I'm loving this already, this inclusive one on one, that people want to see, feel seen, they want to feel heard, they want to feel valued.

And one of the ways of them feeling valued is making sure you turn up on time.

I'm guilty on this one.

I'm I'm a terrible at my gender management, and it's very disrespectful if I'm always late, it says that I don't value your time and you're not important to me.

But if I am on time, it it's the opposite.

And and then to give them their your ear if you want them to get to get to the point where they feel like, Oh, you get them, the only way you're going to get them is if you give them a good damn listening to and then there's that diversity.

And one of the things I was thinking of when you're talking about there, Jonathan is as leaders, we sometimes think that it's our job to impart wisdom, but it's not.

I think if it's a rich conversation, you're both walking away wiser than before the conversation, because you've learned something from them and and they've learned something from you.

And this is where we can co create.

We can only co create if we're truly listening to each other

Absolutely.

I call it lead with your ears in the book, this idea of you, you lead with your ears.

And I heard this years ago, and I love it.

And it's this idea that you do need to, like you said, listen intently, ask following up, follow up questions, you know, getting back to the one on one another, another gem that is, I love this is, you know, close your laptop, you know, unless you're on a oom, but close your laptop and you give the person your full attention, put your phone away.

And you can even do it in a very intentional way.

When they come in the room, you know, put the laptop down, or put the phone down in your bag, or what have you.

It sends the message that, right now, you're the most important thing in my life.

This is the you have me and my full attention this whole time sends a great message of the importance.

Take notes on your action items and then summarize them at the end.

Here's what I hear.

You need me to do differently.

Or, you know, that's another thing.

Is just ask, How am I doing for you as your leader?

What can I do to improve what you know?

Tell me about the best manager you ever had, you know, and compare me to them.

What, what did I what am I doing differently?

Or, what can I we're going to do to improve great vulnerability question, and they'll love that they'll they'll share.

I love that feedback that you're talking about there, but I'm also just loving the inclusiveness of asking those curious questions.

I think that's really powerful.

All right, so the other one that I picked up there is that one of the greatest gifts you can give anyone is your undivided attention that makes them feel valued.

I think Simon Sinek talks about this, that if you've got your phone within reach, you're telling you're signaling to them that, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm here with you, but only unless someone more important doesn't call it's like, it's also a signal that they're not that important to you.

Okay, so let's bring this to this word daily, right?

So, and I know that we've probably touched on some of it already with the inclusive one on ones, but you call it daily practices in the book, you call you call out, daily wisdom, daily courage, daily heart.

How does someone start to build this into a daily habit, Jonathan?

Well, it's a great question.

I.

I think it begins with awareness of their behavior, being more conscious of how they are interacting with folks you know, kind of ramping up their their emotional intelligence, to be self aware of how they're coming across, and trying some of the things that are in the book, even simple things, like you're walking down the hall and you pass somebody, you're a leader.

Be a leader.

You know, look at them if you were able to and nod or say hello or say good morning, just to acknowledge somebody's existence in this world is is significant when I'm on.

I was telling you before, when we started, that I'm a runner, and, you know, if I'm on a trail and I'm running, I always say hi to people, good morning, hello and look at them, because it just acknowledges them.

You don't never know what somebody's going through in their life.

And literally, you could save a life.

You might have someone who has suicide ideation, and you by just acknowledging them and shaking them out of that for that moment, you just never know what people are dealing with.

So just acknowledging another human as you're passing them.

Even if you're on the phone and you're passing somebody, you can at least look at them and nod right and just, you know, or put the other hand up to just kind of say, Hey, that's a little thing to get started.

And then other things are like, let's say you're interviewing a slate of candidates for open role in your team.

Look at the slate of people that are involved in doing the interviewing.

This is a great opportunity to bring the diversity of your workforce into the interview room and have them participate to give you diverse perspectives on the candidate you're interviewing.

And so diverse interview panels is another one of making sure that the panel of people interviewing candidates represents or mirrors your workforce, and your workforce should obviously reflect your your customers and your community in which you work in.

So that's a great way of two benefits of that.

First of all, you're getting diverse perspectives on the candidate you're interviewing.

But to the candidate, when they see that diversity of interviewers, they'll, you know, in many cases, see somebody that looks like them, and they'll see that, especially if the person of difference, if they're have their sexual orientation is different, or, you know, they're gay, or they are black, or they're brown, they're a woman, and they see somebody like them on the panel of interviewers that says, this company values diversity.

They're an inclusive workplace.

This is a great place that I want to be.

And even if they don't get the job, they're going to tell their friends what a positive experience they had and and about the folks that interviewed them that the experience overall that they had.

So that's a great way diverse interview panels is another one that that you can implement.

Thanks, Jonathan, there are two words that screamed in my head while I was listening to you.

The first one was micro moments, and the second one was intentionality.

So on the micro moments, the little parts of you passing the person in the corridor, these are micro moments that can go either way the person can feel seen or they can feel invisible, right?

So if you look them in the eye and acknowledge them and ask them and take a genuine interest of, Hey, how are things they feel seen, heard and valued, and if you walk past them in a hurry with a coffee cup in your hand and you're having a phone call with someone, they feel invisible.

No, no one would even notice I if I didn't turn up to work tomorrow.

They feel the opposite of what we're looking for here.

The boss doesn't even notice me.

So that's a micro moment, so they can go either way.

And then the intentionality you brought up, and this is going to be a great segue to the in the employee life cycle that you brought up preparing for an interview.

But what was, what rang true with me is to pause before you do anything, before your next meeting, before your next activity, pause and think, hang on a second.

Are we just doing the same old, same old, or is this an opportunity to take an intentional act towards inclusion?

Intentionality really rang with me.

So let's talk about the employee lifecycle.

You so you've started to talk about attract, and in your book, you talk about attract, develop, keep and engage.

So tell us how we attract a diverse and inclusive workplace in the first place.

Well, I think you know, to your to your point about intentionality.

I think a lot of times we just continue to do the things that we've always done, and that's going to get you the same result.

So if you want to really increase the diversity of your candidate pool, then you want to be intentional about where you are posting your positions.

So it's about access and going to and building relationships, building trust, really, in communities would that have been historically underestimated, historically oppressed or marginalized, and going to those into those communities.

And for example, in the professional world you may go to there's an organization called the Black MBAs Association, or the Hispanic Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Years, there's an organization called the International, International Women in Technology, building relationships with local chapters, where you are living with those chapters and maybe sponsoring their events, providing speakers, hosting the event at your facility.

That's a great way of starting to get to know and again, listen, understand the issues, the challenges, the topics, provide speakers and expertise to help them grow and develop by investing upfront and being very intentional about that.

So it's not just a transaction of posting a job.

It's about investing and building trust.

So people get to know that you're serious, you're committed, you're thinking about the long haul, and, of course, being, you know, coming together and doing this kind of in it kind of gives you the strength to go the long haul in this work by investing in long term relationships with organizations like so you're the ones I mentioned, so that when people are starting to look for a job, they look to your organization because you've built a relationship.

There's a trust.

They know you.

They've gotten to know your organization a bit.

It's not just seeing a job posting and wondering, who are these people?

What is this company about?

They actually feel more comfortable.

So that's one is just in recruiting, is where you post your jobs.

Another one is what we call candidate slating, and it's often referred to as the silver bullet for diversity and inclusion.

It's about when you're hiring for a position, ensuring that you have of a candidate pool of people you're actually bringing in and interviewing.

You have at least two women, or, let's say, two people of color, two people from an or from an from a community that has historically been underestimated or marginalized, so that they have an opportunity to compete for the job.

And this is where a lot of confusion comes in with with the work that I've been doing, is that people think that it's about giving somebody a job because they're black or because they're a woman, because they bring some level of difference that is in their identity.

That isn't actually the case.

The work is really about creating access, so people can compete for the job, and then you'll always hire the best person for the job, but getting the pool, having a diverse pool, sets you up for success, for actually giving people the opportunity to compete and then hiring the best person for the job.

So that's that's another one that I love, candidate slating because, and the reason, by the way, I said two people, is because the studies have shown there's one out of Harvard Business Review that shows that if you just bring in one woman on the panel, let's say you have five men and one woman for a panel of people being interviewed for the job, the chances of that woman getting hired are actually close to ero.

So when you have at least two in the pool, the chances go up astronomically to where she really has a good opportunity to to compete and get hired.

Jonathan is going to open up a pretty challenging question coming up here in a moment.

So, so if we're going to attract a diverse pool of talent, we need to have intentional actions about who is going to be on our interview panel that you said before.

That also brings diversity of thought to the interview panel, but it also projects you onto the world as we are an inclusive workplace.

All right, thanks.

We are welcoming, we foster this culture of belonging.

They're getting out to your community.

I thought that was really interesting, and to show that the business is one that prides itself on on inclusion and diversity as well is also very interesting on this candidate slating.

And it's not really the slating element that I'm going to ask about.

It's about the selection process.

This one drives me insane.

I have to be open here, Jonathan, that, yes, you do that, but you still recruit for merit.

Then if the person that was selected is from a minority group, and it's hard to call women minority when they're 51% of the population, but you know what I'm talking about here.

Or just think of them as historically, you know, discriminated against for lots of reasons.

Much better, much better.

Okay, good.

All right, so if a woman is given that job or given that promotion, there's an element out there that will say things like that.

Will say, Oh, she only got that job because she's a woman, or she only got that promotion because she's a woman.

Whether it's said or not said a if people are talking like that, it's bloody horrible.

And secondly, if the woman feels that, if she feels like she only got the job because she was a female candidate, then she's not going to have the confidence.

She's going to develop imposter syndrome.

She's not going to step up and do her best work either.

So how do we break that one, the perception that when someone is hired from the group, that you're trying to introduce the diversity into the organization, that they don't feel like it was tokenism.

Right.

Well, you know, you're not going to change people of if they have certain beliefs.

I think what, what you have to focus on is the individual will have to, you know, perform and do the job and be successful and prove.

They earned it.

Just like anybody else who's hired for a job, you have to come in and perform, and perform at a high level, where people feel that you are the right person for the job, where you get into trouble is where folks, what I call malpractice, where they're doing diversity work, and they think that, Oh, we don't have any black people on the team, we need to get and hire a black person, and then they hire a person who's black, and the person isn't successful because they were hired not for their capabilities or knowledge skills and abilities, but hired primarily because of their race.

Maybe they had, obviously, some experience, but maybe they weren't the best candidate, but they said, Well, we really need to hire for color.

That's wrong, and that nobody wants that.

No woman wants to get hired because she's a woman.

No person of color wants to get hired because of their of race.

You want to be hired because of your knowledge, skills and abilities.

And you know, I think where you get into trouble is when folks have done that.

People see that, and then that helps.

Then they start to focus on that.

When somebody of color or a woman or a person with a disability or what have you, is hired, they think, Oh, I've seen this before, and they immediately have the bias that this person was hired because they're a woman or because they're a person of color and not because their abilities.

So this is why a lot of folks will in the black community, for example, Brown community will say they have to work twice as hard to get ahead because of these biases, these that people have on them.

They call it the stereotype threat.

They literally, there are no and you were, you know, you were referring to this as well as the women know that this bias is out there, so it's harder for them to succeed.

And this stereotype threat is in, you know, one of my favorite books called whistling Vivaldi, and it's about this black man who goes down the street and he knows the stereotypes that people have on him, and he starts whistling classical music.

So people break he breaks that bias.

Just by people looking at him and hearing him whistling classical music, they think of him differently.

So this stereotype threat is is a well known challenge that people face who have stereotypes thrown upon them.

Really good, Jonathan, I'm so glad I asked that question.

I love your answer.

So okay, we can do the candidate slating to make sure that we have a diverse representation of candidates, but then we are hiring for merit, and then we're allowing that merit to shine, to let that merit speak for itself.

This is why the person got their job, because they're talented and they bring experience to the table.

They bring something special.

I absolutely love that, and my warning to everyone is listening to Jonathan, if you do the opposite, you're actually doing more damage than good.

You do more damage than good, and it perpetuates.

So you do recruit for merit and then let that merit shine.

And recognize too, Mick just, just to kind of put a an exclamation mark on that, the person bringing that experience of having been in a group that's historically marginalized is a value as well.

A person coming from a community that has historically been discriminated against brings a perspective that they can empathize with the people on the team who have also gone through that, and they'll bring greater levels of empathy.

And can be stronger leaders, not always, but they can be stronger leaders because of their lived experience that they bring, and they can have a this antenna up that we try and develop in leaders to be looking out for the folks that are being having their name mispronounced in meetings, or they get interrupted, and nobody's stepping in to stop that interruption, or somebody's taking credit for somebody's idea, and it happens to be more regularly a woman who's getting interrupted.

Studies show that.

So this, this leader who's coming in with this experience of being bringing that difference also is a huge value.

They'll have empathy for all kinds of lived experience.

I like it a lot.

All right, so we've spoken about how we attract the rest of your lifestyle you talk in the book is to develop, keep and engage.

Yeah, I like this.

So tell us what that looks like.

So, you know, you're growing people, you're developing people, and you're trying to create behaviors that build this culture of belonging so that everybody's performing at a high level.

A couple things I like a lot that I'll share with you from the book is, one of them is this idea of the pause button.

The pause button is, you know, we're all moving so fast we're in this Go, go, go, world.

And yet we know that when we're moving fast, that's when our biases tend to kick in, when our stereotypes occur, when we start behaving in a way that isn't necessarily the most productive.

So the pause button, let's say you're in a meeting, and I used an example a minute ago, of, let's say you're in a meeting and a woman gets interrupted in the meeting, the pause button allows you to say, Hey, hold on a second.

I'm going to hit the pause button.

And that's a cue to everybody in the room that we're going to go from a go, go, go, get through the agenda and move on to our next meeting.

We're actually.

Actually going to slow down for a second, and we're going to think more introspectively about what's happened, what went down.

And this is when the leader can say, or anybody in the room can say, I'm hitting the pause button.

You know, Mary was in the middle of talking, and Joe interrupted her.

Let's let her finish, and then we'll come back to you, Joe.

I really want to hear what you have to say, but, but let's let her finish.

And that is a pebble we're dropping to say, we don't interrupt in this group.

We let people finish what they're saying.

And then when everybody goes on to the next meeting, then the same thing could occur.

Somebody gets interrupted, and somebody says, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna model that behavior.

That was really cool.

They drop a pebble and they stop somebody from getting interrupted.

Or it could be another instance where somebody, you know, says a joke that's not appropriate, and somebody says, Hold on, I'm hitting the pause button.

You know, your intent might have been good trying to tell a joke, but the impact here is that just didn't land well.

And you really, in some cases, this is another inclusive meeting tip that we give is, they're called inclusive meeting tips is the idea of you have an option, there a judgment choice of either calling in or calling out.

So you hit the pause button, you stop, kind of put a hold on the meeting and have a conversation.

You can choose either to use it as an opportunity to call them in to in a polite, diplomatic way of educating them and everyone else in the room that we don't interrupt, or we don't take somebody's idea, or we don't tell jokes of that nature.

You want to be more sensitive that you know that's not going to land well at work, or, really in any environment, or you can call them out.

And calling them out is when somebody does so something so egregious, so inappropriate, that it's really important to kind of link it to the values of the company and say, you know, that really doesn't fly here.

That's really inappropriate and and you really need to apologize.

That wasn't, that wasn't the right thing, to say you need to take that back.

And that is a great pebble to drop for everyone in the room seeing this is a certain this is the behavior and what we value in this organization.

And that can also be a pebble that ripples out to other meetings when people see these types of behaviors occur.

So the pause button is a way to slow down and think more critically and have the conversation in the moment when, oftentimes we see these happen quickly, and they go by, and it's like watching an accident occur.

You just sit back and you don't say anything.

You just watch that.

This is an opportunity to actually pause in the moment, have the conversation and then move on, and then, of course, deciding how you're going to handle it from a judgment perspective.

Is this a calling in moment where we educate or is it calling out where we really need to, you know, draw a line here and say that that's not cool.

So, okay, listen to this audience.

Listen to Jonathan powerfully here that this is another action that you can put into practice straight away, that I love this pause button idea and the calling in, calling out, we get the behavior that we tolerate.

So if we don't call it in or call it out.

It just perpetuates.

Really love it.

Jonathan, this is a great way to be an ally for the people that are getting interrupted or they're getting their ideas stolen.

Absolutely love this.

So pause button.

Empower everyone, not just you.

Empower everyone in your team.

Hey, everyone's got the license to stick their hand up and say, Hey, I'm calling the pause button now, and here's why really love it.

Jonathan, all right, final part I want to talk about, although I've got maybe one challenging question coming up as well.

In your book, you've also got this model called insights of inclusive leadership, the two il model, and it's got these seven kind of different passes, parts of the wheel.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how someone can apply this so it's got cultural competence, ethnocentrism, unconscious bias, stereotypes, micro advantages and micro inequities, the platinum rule and tempered radical how do people start with this wheel?

Right.

So this wheel that the insights for inclusive leadership, what we call the two il model, was developed over, Gosh, 20 plus years of doing this work, and primarily my co author developed this, bringing these all together.

And what's important about the aspects that you mentioned is, is that they're all interrelated, and it's important.

And the other thing about the book, the first part of the book, the foundational parts of the book, it's about having courage, you know, having the courage to act, to speak up.

It's about having heart, which is empathy and compassion that we talked about earlier.

And it's also about wisdom.

And this is part of the daily wisdom chapter, the two al model.

And wisdom comes from experience combined with knowledge.

Over time, you develop wisdom.

And so this is the seven insights.

Are things that you you never stop learning.

They're they're always developed.

You're always developing and growing in the space.

And one of them is unconscious bias.

And so often in the work that I do.

And practitioners who share my this discipline focus so heavily on unconscious bias, but there's so much more to it than that.

And so the two al model highlights this idea that, especially in a world, world where we're working with people from all over the world now, this idea of cultural competency, of really understanding differences, valuing those learning that there's, you know, different ways of doing things are not necessarily wrong, they're just different.

So cultural competency is about learning about different styles, and each of these are important on their own.

Ethnocentrism comes from judging other people based upon your values.

So again, you know, building your cultural competency, your understanding and being more aware of your ethnocentrism by just you know, travel or reading or you know books or watching movies or experiencing people from different cultures and different restaurants, or spending time with people different from yourself, inviting them into your home, getting going coffee with someone who comes from a different cultural Background.

This is how you build cultural competency and help manage your your ethnocenters.

And this, this natural bias we have of thinking our ways is the only way or the right way, and then just ways of interrupting your unconscious biases and being aware of stereotypes.

We're processing something like 11 million pieces of data in our head at any given time, but we can only hold about 43 at one point.

So, you know, the studies show that it's, you know, and we wouldn't even get through a day if we didn't have stereotypes.

They just help us function as humans, because there's so much happening for us.

And then, like we, you know, talked about a little bit earlier, about micro, you know, inequities or microaggressions, and understanding what those are, how when you see them again, having your antenna up and being able to hit the pause button and talk about things in the moment, it can be as simple as pronouncing your name is differently than Mick, right?

It can be something like that, or somebody calling me Jonathan stootz versus Jonathan Stutz, even if I've even after I've told them it's Stutz, not stoots and, you know, and just not taking the time to listen, that can be a little microaggression that is showing that they're really not listening.

They don't care enough to get it right.

So these are things that we want to become aware of.

And then another one is the platinum rule, and this is key to this connection you want to have with other folks, where you want to get to know people at a deeper level.

Many of us in North America were taught the golden rule.

Maybe you were taught it as well.

Mick, where you treat people the way you want to be treated?

Well, that's the golden rule.

The Platinum Rule is taking it up another level.

It's treating people the way they want to be treated.

And to do that, you really need to take the time to get to know them and what's important to them, what they're about, how they want to be treated.

So we really impress upon people taking the time to get to know people at a deeper level, connect with them and create that connection.

So the platinum rule really is a great way to have a binding value, and then being a tempered radical is the seventh of the seven insights, and that comes from a book called rocking the boat.

It was originally called tempered radicals, how to drive change without getting into trouble, by Dr.

Debra Myerson, a Stanford University professor, and she was a huge inspiration to us.

They're not necessarily bad.

She's a friend of both me and my co author.

We actually had it up to Amazon for National Women's Day, and got to meet her.

And I've gone down to Stanford and spent time with her.

And there's two metaphors, and you know one of them, the dropping the pebble that comes from Deborah, this idea of you drop a pebble, and you can drive little by these little behaviors, these little actions, intentional actions, can create a ripple, and the ripples can drive to a wave, and a wave can drive change over time and really make an impact.

The other part of the metaphor is rocking the boat.

And you want to rock the boat hard, you want to drive for change, but you don't want to rock the boat.

The boat's so hard that people fall out.

You want to keep everybody in the boat.

And oftentimes, when we're doing diversity work, people think that who we're knocking out of the boat is white men, frankly, and that's just not the case.

We need everybody in the boat.

We need everybody's background and experiences and and the privilege and power that they bring, if they're in a privileged or dominant culture, to the table to really drive change.

So this rocking the boat is really a critical metaphor as well.

So the seven insights are just a great way.

And by the way, in the book, we use QR codes so that you can actually hit a QR code from in the book and watch videos of us talking about these topics in much greater depth.

So it takes you to the inclusive pebbles website, inclusivepevels.com and people can see videos of us talking about many of the topics in the book at a deeper level.

Yeah, brilliant, Jonathan.

I'm going to leave that as the teaser for everyone to get the book.

So it's got a lot of depth in it around this two il model that you can all learn from.

So I'm going to leave that as something for you to go away and buy the book, use the QR codes, watch the videos, read the book.

There are things in there, actionable insights that you can all take.

All right, I'm going to summarize a little bit now and then take us to a very challenging question.

Jonathan.

So, you've given us a lot to think about today.

First of all that inclusion is an intentional action of daily practices.

It's not a once a year.

Oh, look at that.

It's world belonging day.

We better do something about inclusion today.

It's a daily practice.

You've given us some very practical tips on things, and this is my question to the audience, think about, from what you've heard from Jonathan today, which of these are you going to start putting in practice?

Is it those micro moments of when you're passing someone in the corridor?

Is it the inclusive one on ones?

Is it the pause button?

Are you going to get your team together and empower them to use the pause button to call people in or call people out.

These are very practical things that you can start doing today.

But if you want to make a difference, you need to start.

If nothing changes, nothing changes, so you need to do something.

All right, the challenging question Jonathan and you, your dad's passed this before, and I let it go, but I can't let it go anymore.

How did the word dei get hijacked in today's society where it's become a political weapon?

Oh, that person was a dei hire.

That was, you know, how did it become a dirty word?

It's a wonderful thing.

How did it become a dirty word?

You know, it's a great question.

I think that it, you know, how it actually happened?

I mean, I think that the current US administration has has taken the term, hijacked it, and changed the narrative.

It's really a false narrative of what it's about, and they're driving fear, and it comes from fear.

This is why people are are jumping on the bandwagon thinking dei is a bad thing from this false narrative.

And it's this idea that if I as I'm part of the dominant culture, our workforce, the country, in the US, at least, is becoming increasingly diverse.

And so the people that have had the most power and privilege in our society have been historically white men.

Even if you look at organizations today for profit, nonprofit, any community organization, companies are primarily white and male at the senior most levels of the organization.

Our government, both houses of Congress are high in the high 80s, low 90s, for percentage of white males, and they've been in positions of power in our society.

And I think they see this slipping away.

And they see that the increase of people from historical what we used to call minorities.

And like you said, How can you call a woman a minority when she's 51% of the population, this is going to continue to grow.

Colleges Universities are more than 50 more than 50% female now, and this has caused fear, and this idea that supporting diversity is about us, are seeing our power slipping away, and so they're attacking it, and they're going after it to help people feel that they have some control or power, but I'm going to tell you, Mick, the train has left the station.

This is not going to change.

Our society is becoming increasingly diverse.

The technology has allowed us to work with people from all over the world of all different races and backgrounds and cultures, and it's incumbent upon us to embrace that and leverage it, and understand that we need to have a workforce that really mirrors our customers, that is really global.

The companies that get it are not backing down.

I think this is also a little bit like I've been calling it.

The attacks on dei are a little bit like an airplane crash is airplane travel is one of the safest forms of travel possible.

Yet when an airplane crashes, it's sensational.

It makes the news.

Companies are not backing down overall from diversity work.

They understand the importance of inclusion.

They understand it's a business issue.

It's a business strategy.

And they are not you look at the Costcos of the world.

I have clients I'm working with that are actually ramping up now.

Companies that had not invested in the past are reaching out to ramp up.

They're reading books like mine, and they're understanding that this is not about it being a ero sum game.

This is about actually everybody winning.

So I could go on and on, but I won't, but I'm happy to dialog with anybody who wants to reach out to talk about it more.

It's wonderful, Jonathan, you've given me some heart and some confidence.

I've got to say so I agree with you on the politics of fear.

That's what it feels like.

I take heart from what you're saying at the end, that people will ride this wave.

I feel like we made a lot of progress over the last decade in particular, and then the last year, we took several steps backwards.

But I'm glad to hear that you have the confidence that the weight of this, the momentum will be maintained.

Probably the other view, I'm going to say, is it's probably also weeding out the people that were doing it for the right reasons, and the people that were doing it for the wrong reasons, that didn't believe in it anyway.

And that kind of exposes them that they were maybe you.

Know what the right rainbow washing is?

That the right term, like a the green washing, where they might be putting rhetoric out there saying, we're a company that believes in in inclusion, and as soon as the first kind of headwinds come, they they drop it like a hot rock.

Well, they didn't believe it in in the first place, but the ones that truly believe stayed the course.

They call that performative diversity.

Very good.

Okay, all right, excellent, Jonathan, this has been an amazing conversation.

I want to take us now to our Rapid Round.

These are the same four questions we ask all of I guess so, what's the one thing you know now?

Jonathan Stutz, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Yeah, right, yeah.

Oh, boy.

I wish I knew to take more time to understand who I am.

I think, you know, it's a very personal question, really.

And I think that when you go to work for companies, you kind of sell your soul, you know, you kind of compromise to meet the needs of other people, to understand what they want, what it takes to be successful.

You start focusing in on what are the behaviors and attributes you need to have in order to be financially successful and to grow into and grow in the organization and take on more and more senior roles, and you don't focus as much on who you are and what you are about.

And I think what I've discovered just in the last, really the last year since I what I call soft retired from corporate life, is to spend more time understanding who I am and getting back to the person that I want to be, and focusing on that and not trying to make other people happy.

So pretty deep question.

I don't know if you intended it to be, but I've been doing a lot of work on learning about me and who I am and what my values are, and how I want to respect and treat and work with other people in a more empathetic and understanding way.

Not just a deep question that was a deep answer Jonathan and he gave me something to think About, connecting back to the authentic self, really powerful.

What's your favorite book?

You know, my favorite book is a book that sent me down this path, or, you know, on this path, I'll say of this work in a really meaningful way for me, where I really deeply connected with it, because I, of course, had my childhood experiences.

But the book is called cultures and organizations software of the mind by Geert Hofstede.

And Geert Hofstede is really the father of cultural competency, cultural intelligence, cultural humility.

There's lots of different names for it, but it's this idea.

It's one of the seven insights that Garrett Hofstede, his book, cultures and organizations, software the mind, had a huge impact on me.

I have it on my shelf here, and it's still to this day, tagged with post it notes and highlights.

And so this is the book, and I and I treasure it.

And so anyway, that's the book, and it's called the intercultural cooperate.

Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival.

Great book.

Yeah, really, really good.

And actually, we're spoken about a culture of belonging, Jonathan, but a lot of Hofstede work is deciding what culture you want in the first place.

That's a really key part, because then you can celebrate and reward the behavior that's aligned to those values and and you cannot tolerate the behavior that's outside those values.

Yeah, really powerful, nice.

Yeah.

What's your favorite quote?

My favorite quote is, I have lots of different ones, but the one I think that's most relevant for your audience and for them to take an action away from this is that inclusive leadership is leadership.

It's a very simple quote, but it's, it's inclusive leadership is leadership.

And it just means that all this work we're talking about, about DEI or ID&E or DIA or DIB there's lots of different, you know, acronyms you can put with it.

But the bottom line is, was that inclusive leadership is leadership.

We're trying to build a workforce, a team where an organization, where you're highly effective, high performing, and everybody gets what they need in order to be successful, and everybody feels, you know, like we talked about, seen, heard, valued and understood.

So inclusive leadership is leadership

Very powerful.

All right, thank you, Jonathan.

And finally, there's going to be people listening to this, and I'm hoping that that you have inspired them into immediate, small actions, small pebbles, that they can have a ripple effect with if they want to do deeper work and understand it more fully.

How do they find you?

How do they find the book?

How do they take advantage of your work?

Right.

Well, the book's available worldwide, so you can, you can get it from your local bookseller.

Request it, they'll bring it in.

Go to Amazon, of course.

Is it's available there through the publisher, Barrett Kohler.

Barrett Kohler publishing is available to get it there.Um, but the website we have for the book is called inclusivepebbles.com is one word.

Inclusive pebbles.com There's videos, there's other books we recommend.

In addition to our book, there's a whole lot of information out there where we talk about the importance of these daily practices of inclusive leaders.

Wonderful, Jonathan.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your gift with us today, your gift of your wisdom, the gift of your time, to give us some very practical insights.

I feel richer for having this conversation, but you've also inspired me to think about my micro moments and my intentional actions, and I'm going to adopt the pause button.

That's that's one of my takeaways today.

Thank you so much for your time today.

I really appreciate it being on the show.

Thank you so very much.

You're welcome.

What an amazing conversation with Jonathan Stutz.

It really makes you stop and think, What if leadership wasn't about having the loudest voice, but about making sure no voice goes unheard.

Jonathan reminded us that inclusive leadership is not a strategy on paper.

It's a choice you make every day, to be curious, to be humble, to be empathetic, to be accountable, and perhaps most of all, to be courageous if you want your people to feel seen, to feel valued and to truly belong.

It starts with the small moments, the way you listen, the way you ask, the way you show up.

Because when people feel like they belong, they don't just stay, they thrive.

So a huge thank you to Jonathan for sharing his powerful insights, and for reminding us that the true mark of a leader is not how many people follow you, but how many people flourish because of you.

I'm going to cut in here with a quick announcement to say that we're starting a new show at The Leadership Project, which is based on your questions.

I'll be reading out your questions about leadership and giving practical advice.

So if you have always got a burning question or a challenge that you're facing in your own leadership, please send us in your question.

We'll read it out, either referencing you or anonymously, if you like, and I'll give some practical tips on your question.

Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP.

Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo, and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you.

Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Now, in the meantime, please do take care.

Look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.