[00:00:00] DEI training is more and more commonly available, and this is a good thing. It can, however, be daunting in terms of figuring out what credential to pursue as a talent leader and how to go beyond one-off DEI training sessions and into systemic change. That is observable and public. What are some ways you can build strong DEI practices into the various systems that make up the employee experience in your organization?
[00:02:28] Listen to this episode for some practical ideas and examples. My guest is Carrie bird. She's the founder and principal of a virtual first consulting and coaching firm, specializing in strategic HR, diversity, equity, inclusion, and workplace wellness. It was a pleasure to interview Carrie. On this episode, you will be in awe of her commitment to developing her own expertise so that she can better serve her own clients in the area of diversity equity inclusion.
[00:02:56] Thanks for listening.
[00:02:58] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Welcome back to talent management truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell. And today I'm joined by Carrie bird. Carrie is the founder and principal of a virtual first consulting and coaching firm. And she's going to share with us in particular, her passion around the area of diversity equity inclusion.
[00:03:21] Thank you so much for coming on the show.
[00:03:23] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Thanks so much for having me, Lisa, it's a pleasure to be here.
[00:03:26] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Well, we could talk and talk and talk knowing you and I, so, so, so lots to dig into here. Would you please begin by sharing a little bit with the audience about who you are and where you came from fairly.
[00:03:39] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Sure. So, as you mentioned, I'm the founder of my own consultancy and my focus is on building healthy workplaces at the intersection of strategic HR, diversity, equity and inclusion and workplace wellness. I offer consulting coaching program design. I support policy reviews and I do training and workshops.
[00:03:58] Prior to my life as a consultant, I actually have a fairly lengthy career in the public service. So I worked for the economic development cluster of provincial ministries for the province of Ontario, and prior to that, worked with a public agency. And then I also earlier in my career, worked briefly in the private sector and inactive.
[00:04:18] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Wonderful. Yes. So you've got a really broad spectrum of experiences to draw from, and you're, you've been on your own for about a year and a half. I think.
[00:04:26] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: That long. Yeah.
[00:04:28] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Yeah. Interesting. So I think for, for some people they say it could be kind of intriguing to hear a little bit about what your journey has been like as you make that transition from organizational life, into making your way as a consultant.
[00:04:42] Could you speak to that a little.
[00:04:44] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Sure. I think for me the initial challenge was I'm somebody who I've heard it called in the past is somebody you would consider a comprehensive list. So you probably heard the terms, generalist, and specialist, and the idea of a comprehensive list as somebody who's had. What Korn ferry is described as.
[00:05:02] Breadth and depth and complexity of different assignments to kind of create a very well-rounded person who has like relatively deep knowledge, but across a broad range of topics. So it's very, very blessed to have been given a career and opportunities within the Ontario public service that allowed me to develop that reputation as a comprehensive list.
[00:05:20] But trying to sell yourself as such in the marketplace, especially to people who haven't worked with you for a sort of 15 or 20 years. Like so many people in my career had before that was a bit of a daunting challenge for me. So I thought one of the best ways to approach that was really to look at how could.
[00:05:36] Package and sort of sell my services in a way that people would instantly recognize that there's some credibility there. So I looked around and I, I focused in, on really getting three core kind of credentials. Cause I was already a regulated HR professional. I've been doing diversity equity and inclusion work since 2009.
[00:05:53] It had always been a core pillar of my HR work. But there were three credentials that stood out to me and I did a fair bit of research and deciding. Where to focus. So the first was on becoming a certified diversity professional. So I got that credential through the society for diversity, which is a US-based organization.
[00:06:10] And it has sort of a comprehensive training portion. And then you do a project that you submit for peer review through the society for diversity, and then you have to write an exam and it requires 80% to pass. And you're not admitted into the program unless you already have DEI experience. So they don't take novices into it.
[00:06:27] It's for people who are already experienced professionals, but looking to do what I was looking to do, which was really to establish that credibility in a recognizable way. Then I also realized as an HR person, although I hadn't been. Hands-on involved in recruitment. I had heard an awful lot over the course of my career, but how difficult it was to see the pipeline with people from diverse backgrounds.
[00:06:49] So I really wanted to know how hard is it. So I found an organization and it's called airs by ADP that does the certification program to become a certified diversity recruiter. But they've recently expanded the title to say certified diversity and inclusive recruiter. Which helped me to kind of like understand sort of the inside tricks of the trade to help access more diverse talent.
[00:07:12] So that was really just for my own learning, but not to sell myself as a recruiter. And then the third piece was to take a coaching program called the. wellness, competency, mindset coaching. And it's really focused on workplace wellness. And it's the idea that wellness is actually comprised of a set of competencies and by competencies, their knowledge, skills, and behaviors that we're all able to influence over time.
[00:07:35] So wellness is in a fixed state and it's not unidimensional, it's made up of nine different. facets of wellness at each of those nine facets has a different competency attached to it. So that was intriguing to me as an HR person. Who's functioned, you know, in a world, you know, very much focused on building competencies in the workforce to understand wellness as a competency-based model was fascinating to me.
[00:07:57] So that's the area of coaching that I specialized in. And of course I see. A really nice connect between wellness and diversity, because we know in fact that racism, discrimination, stereotype, harassment
[00:08:11] all have an effect on the wellness of people in our workplaces. And So wanting to be able to support people both through the pandemic and through the recent sort of social justice and political unrest of the last few years was really important to me.
[00:08:25] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: So it's interesting because you've, you've done this, this deep dive. Specializations really, you know, it's being a comprehensive list in this area of, of diversity and inclusion and, and, and wellness more holistically. Could you actually, I'm really intrigued when you say that, you know, in the wellness coach training that it was, it was around, you know, these nine competencies really are behaviors related to wellness.
[00:08:50] Could you share with us a couple of those, just as an example,
[00:08:52] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Sure. So one good example, is emotional wellness. So when you focus on emotional wellness, the competency there is self-mastery. So how are we regulating our emotions? How are we understanding them? How are we. Managing them in our day-to-day life. So it's very much related to emotional intelligence.
[00:09:10] If you I'm, I'm trained to deliver emotional intelligence assessments and to develop or to deliver high potential assessments as well. And I see lots of interconnections there with the emotional intelligence piece. So Yeah.
[00:09:21] really, it's, it's understanding sort of the underlying skill that comes with that.
[00:09:25] And a really interesting one. And I, and I love this and it's less about the competency and more about an understanding of the dementia. There is one dimension called the spiritual dimension and I'm not a practicing religious person or have any particularly organized religion. But my understanding of it grew over the course of my training.
[00:09:45] And it was really about whether or not we understand what our personal values are and how much we are living a life in alignment with our values and that when we're living a life of alignment, that we are spiritually. And I thought that was a fascinating concept. I really love that idea. And I've actually used that learning and that insight to do a lot of personal reflection about what my values are.
[00:10:09] And that's in fact, what brought me to this work as a consultant was just the decision that, you know, life is short. And I really want to make sure that I'm investing all of my time and energy to live a life of passion and purpose and sort of making the best use of the skills and the talents that I have.
[00:10:25] And doing DEI is like a mirror pillar of my work in HR was no longer satisfying. I really wanted it to be a full-time pursuit and to be as well-rounded as it possibly could. So. DEI is a shorthand for a lot of different things that fall under that umbrella, including anti-racism anti-oppression feminism.
[00:10:42] And of course, a workplace wellness.
[00:10:44] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Fascinating. So I really want to acknowledge just, just the, the, the dedication you've had to, to growing your own knowledge, your own expertise and, and skill in this particular area that you already had such an existing passion for. And, and we're, I mean, you were a bonafide expert already, so it's just, Sounds like honing it and, and gathering support around you to, to build on what was already there.
[00:11:09] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Well, and I can't say enough about that support piece. And also though what you're talking about sort of doing the deeper work I took Jennifer Brown, who's a published author in a, in a world renowned expert in DEI. I took one of her courses, which was uh, DEI practitioner course. She talked about the importance of any DEI practitioner getting into this space, understanding what drew them to the work and what their own personal DEI story was, because that informs so much of what you do in this space.
[00:11:38] So that sort of was helpful in augmenting that journey of self discovery and certainly through all of these different endeavors that I've undertaken, I've developed this huge sort of community of support and practice around me with. Very very sort of, fulfilling. It gives me so much energy and fuel and a sense of connection and belonging, which, you know, if I had to give advice to anybody who's starting out on their own, it's like, it's quite a, sort of, almost like a shock to the system to go from working in.
[00:12:06] A big corporation and having built in teams and having a clear boss, I think PR even perhaps communities of practice that you have access to through regular meetings and to have regular sources of feedback. And so I think it's really important for anybody who goes out on their own to do consulting that they work hard to replace those things with something different, but that provides the same kind of function for.
[00:12:29] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: I completely mirrors my experience by the way. So I'm
[00:12:32] coming up. Yeah.
[00:12:33] Yeah. I'm coming up on five years on my own and, and,
[00:12:36] you know, initially, you know, thank you. It's it's, it can feel very isolating. I mean, I don't get me wrong. I, I love what I do and I, I can't see, I can't see going back. I S I had 25 wonderful years and I w I don't regret any of them.
[00:12:49] But I am quite happy in this new stage, this new phase of my career. That said it was it the shock to the system. I really, really relate to that. Cause you're sort of thinking, oh my God, it's all at. And I'm alone, I'm alone. And so,
[00:13:03] you know,
[00:13:04] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: I'm responsible for myself.
[00:13:09] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: this happened at this age and stage. Right. But, but, you know, similar to you, I threw myself into the learning immediately, right into deep, deep learning
[00:13:17] for me, it was my one-year program for coaching. And a whole host of other opportunities. And I think what's interesting is here we are to HR learning people, you know, with long careers and coming out of the workplace, where, what I notice is really, talent and HR, people are often the shoemaker's children.
[00:13:37] We were talking about that in the
[00:13:38] green, what room and, and, coming out and going. Oh, my God. I got to like, you know, that costs money and that's daunting or, or
[00:13:45] time. And you know, if you're taking advantage of different free, awesome resources that are out there, but I, I get to do this. Oh, I get to focus just on.
[00:13:55] My own learning and growth. And it's like, I would tell you, I almost overdid it. I spoke so much energy on this. Yeah. And the first two years, and then I was like, oh, okay. Now I need, then my focus became,
[00:14:10] let's just start using what I've learned. And it was more around the execution and, and, and application piece of it.
[00:14:18] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: well, and I think for me too
[00:14:19] it was looking back at a career that had been very, very rich and, you know, for anybody who's out. Contemplating, is it a worthwhile pursuit to consider public service? I would, you know, I have. Tons of enthusiasm and wonderful things to say about public service.
[00:14:37] Like I just had such an amazing career in the public service. And part of it is because they believe very much in rounding experiences. So they very intentionally puts you towards what they call the highest, best use of your talent and skills. And so the result of that is
[00:14:53] turning out a lot of people who have. big picture thinking tend to be quite agile, more innovative than we give public servants credit for and really, really interesting careers. But for me, a really helpful sort of outcome of all that learning. Was to narrow my interests. So I'm the kind of person that could get excited about any job he put me into.
[00:15:16] I could, you know, I'm notorious for going online and falling down rabbit hole hole said, you know, voraciously reading, tons of books and consuming information. But that's just the way my mind works. And I have like a curious mind naturally, but the learning really helped me say, okay, what is it that I'm passionate about?
[00:15:33] How can I marry. My experience and my skill sets with what I now clearly understand to be the things that are most important to me. And I'm most passionate about.
[00:15:43] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: well, learning in and of itself is a reflective practice. And I think that's, Coming through corporate growing up in that area. And you, you, you know, you've got the private side as well as the, the public service or government side, you know, I think back certainly a couple of decades, anyways, learning was always around.
[00:15:59] Well, it could be, you know, participating on a committee, you were a special project assignment, but often it was a workshop or some kind of training event. And not always with the sufficient amount of practice of reflection rather to put it into
[00:16:11] practice and really really get that return on investment.
[00:16:15] And I'm noticing that I think there's a shift to more agile modes of learning now. Right? Like making things manageable, you know, bite-size and so on. I think there's more awareness of how that works better for us.
[00:16:26] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: And the value
[00:16:27] Of coaching.
[00:16:27] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: And the value of coaching well, and, and you see more at war organizations investing in coaching and including for front frontline employees are more junior management.
[00:16:37] It's not just reserved for the, the C-suite anymore. That is a reflective learning process and giving people the space the time or encouraging them to take the time to reflect fair. What do I really want? What am I learning? What, what am I missing? What's next? We're talking about it from an entrepreneurial standpoint, you kind of get that time.
[00:16:56] And most of us kind of jump on it. That seems to be a real ammo for a lot of entrepreneurs that I know certainly in our space. and yet I think there's something for folks still in organizations to take from that. It's how can you carve out meaningful learning time that that includes reflection?
[00:17:14] What are your thoughts about that?
[00:17:15] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Yeah, I, you know, I think that's, I love this conversation. I've had this conversation a few times over my career. So I think for every organization, there needs to be a balance between the delivery of just-in-time information to help enable people to do their jobs. And that tends to be, you know, current role oriented, but then there's the career development conversation and the future role orientation.
[00:17:42] Employees really are hungry for that, you know, they already feel. And there are some survey data research data about employee engagement and how employees feel about learning and development. And I think, you know, a lot of employees are suffering from burnout right now. They're feeling overworked, overburdened that?
[00:17:59] you know, working remotely, working hybrid, working in the office, each has its pros and cons.
[00:18:04] And depending on who you're talking to me feel extra burdened by whichever option they're being asked to live in or live with. And so sometimes being asked to do more learning and development feels like just another item on their checklist of things to do.
[00:18:18] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:18:19] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: if you have that talent development conversation with them and you talk about like, okay, so where do you see yourself a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, what's your 10 year life plan and how can we help you get there?
[00:18:33] Whether that's with. Or with somebody else. And we used to joke that there were certain ministries and government that were like the farm team. I hate they, they grew the talent that then went off to bigger ministries with baker mandates and more complex roles and more resourcing. But we didn't feel bad about that because we got to keep them in the organization, but we grew them from the seat they were in. So my advice to any organization would be to make sure you're striking that right balance that, you know, there's, there's learning employees have to do to be able to give back immediately to the organization, the form of compliance or, or tools to do better jobs or be more productive or efficient. But then there's the investment that you make with no necessary expectation of return
[00:19:13] where it's really a more selfless act of helping to develop and grow your employees.
[00:19:18] And I think that's a little bit overlooked at the moment in my experience.
[00:19:21] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Yeah, I agree. And you know what I mean, it sort of made me think of, as, as you were speaking there, you know, when you were talking about the AI kind of component and you know, the, self-management the self-regulation right? Like
[00:19:32] to me, this, this idea that, yes. There's job readiness and they have, you know, having the skills, we need to perform jobs and also the career.
[00:19:40] Learning that, that we want as well in future career ideation. So to speaker or, or preparation, but it's also about just, being more intentional on a day-to-day basis, right. To, be able to self-manage the inevitable ways that we get in our own way, or when, external environmental stuff gets thrown at us.
[00:19:59] Right. How we respond is really the only thing we have any kind of control over.
[00:20:05] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Well, that's interesting. You raise an interesting point. you know, an Atlas of the heart Bernay brown has an acronym called braving that she
[00:20:12] uses.
[00:20:12] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: about it today in our book club,
[00:20:15] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: did that breathing as a practice where the B R a V I N G L stand for something and they all support trustworthiness. And I. Interesting to see under the eye and ING she talks about integrity and in the second bullet under integrity, was that idea of doing what's right?
[00:20:35] Not what's fast, easy or fun. And I think, you know, there's a real lesson in that for all of us when it comes to DEI training, because we know there's now well-established research that suggests in the absence of more meaningful or systemic change or. Cultural sort of innovation, No,
[00:20:54] amount of unconscious bias awareness training is going to drive the necessary change to fully embrace and realize the potential of diversity equity, inclusion, justice.
[00:21:05] Anti-racism. And so I think that that's really important when you're thinking about it from a learning and development perspective, as well as how can you create the necessary time for self reflection and self-awareness and behavioral change, because you really can't create systemic change unless people have adequate time to do that.
[00:21:27] That DEI work is deep work. It needs to be very intentional. It takes time. It's complex. It can be uncomfortable. It's not a quick win. The training might be. But the actual change as an outcome is not a quick win. And so employers need to be really invested in that and understand that it's going to be a lengthier, more complex process and that to really back up the values, that would be a spouse through the training.
[00:21:54] They have to. Bed change throughout every layer of the organization. So really looking at it from a systems level. So how do our policies are spoken and unspoken practices? Our programs, our promotion criteria, our recruitment practices, our succession planning, our performance management, even how we set our performance management goals.
[00:22:15] How were all of those things supporting DEI? And what does unconscious bias as an example have to do.
[00:22:22] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Yeah, it's really creating that, that ecosystem. Right. but you know, really, really embedding and threading throughout every potential system. It's this integration or integrated approach. So if somebody just, really getting started on that journey in their organization, they've been charged with it.
[00:22:38] What would you say is, you know, the best place to start.
[00:22:42] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: I think the best place to start.
[00:22:43] is wherever you're at. You know, that
[00:22:45] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Uh, Y yeah. What else? I think I know where you're going. I think it's very wise.
[00:22:52] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Yeah.
[00:22:52] You have to meet people where they're at. So if you give people big, hairy, audacious goals around DEI and it feels unachievable, or it feels inauthentic. You're probably not going to be very successful. So you have to work with what you have and, and I mean that in every possible way. So I often hear that an excuse for inaction is a lack of data, but you can find data in surprising places.
[00:23:14] And sometimes waiting until you have enough data to fully tell this story delays, meaningful action for people who are already having a negative lived experience in your organization. So you're shortchanging them by waiting for like a full one-year cycle or two year cycle to clean up your data, get your data.
[00:23:32] So it's not the DEI. Shouldn't be data-driven. It absolutely should be. You know, we in government where we used to refer to data informed policy. So in the DEI space, I think you'd need. Informed policies as well. But I think there has to be some kind of parallel action to show employees your intent and that just inviting them to the table and asking what they want and what they need and trying to use sort of like universal design principles to deliver that is going to get you a lot further than just sort of retreating to sort of the corporate.
[00:24:03] Sort of ivory tower and getting all your assertive data, people behind the scenes trying to gather data. And Lily's Ang, who's a columnist and DEI practitioner and expert in the field. for anybody who doesn't already follow Lily's Ang, I would encourage them to follow them. They talk about the importance of before asking the question of your employees, how would you self-identify it's really critical. Build psychological safety first. So I think that was a bit of an aha moment for all of us in the field, because it's sort of a knee jerk reaction to say, okay, let's get sort of the demographic data for organizations that we, we, we at least understand our starting point and we can benchmark ourselves against other.
[00:24:44] Often happens is employees are cynical or suspicious or we've broken trust in some way with them. And they have difficulty feeling safe enough to answer the question cause they want to know, why are you asking, what are you going to do with my responses? Is the data going to be anonymized? You know, am I going to become sort of a victim of.
[00:25:06] Quote-unquote quotas or a perception that I'm being promoted or advanced or even hired because I represent part of an historically excluded group. So all of those would be some of the concerns that employees would have about answering that question. So I think a really good place to start. It's maybe just do a cultural assessment and understand the starting point of your culture versus your demographics.
[00:25:30] So let's look at how high the trust is, how high the safety is, how high the sense of inclusion is. And even survey monkey has done some work on this in partnership with another organization and they have sample questions that anybody. Doing employee engagement, serving and can use to help them understand the current state of psychological safety and belonging. So, definitely encourage people to start there and kind of build from the ground up.
[00:25:55] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: So, and you talked earlier about the importance of change management and communications. So how would that layer in, what, what would be your, your advice.
[00:26:04] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: I think it's human nature that we all respond to really good storytelling, you know, like the best political leaders and the best historical figures that we recall, the people who have impacted us most in life tend to be those who were really good storytellers. So, and part of that I think is that they create that emotional connect.
[00:26:23] With the listener and the material. And so I think it's the same with DEI that if you're looking to bring folks along, it's borrowing from the ideas of like the burning platform for change that we talk about in change management and also that idea of storytelling and emotional connection that we sort of tap into our sense of shared humanity.
[00:26:42] I think that's one way to do it. The other is in my experience, Especially for white males and, and white women. But more so white males, it can feel threatening to get engaged in these conversations either because you feel that you've sort of been painted as the bad guy in things, or that you're responsible for white supremacist ideals, or, you know, a history of enslaving black people and, and other groups.
[00:27:08] And so you can come to the table with a fair amount of defensiveness. And so what are we doing to sort of disarm that defensiveness and to bring more people to the table with a growth mindset and with a sense of sort of cultural humility or racial humility, I think that's really important. And so. Equipping people with the language to talk about this in the safe places to have the conversations I think is really, really important. And understanding that people will miss step, they will get it wrong. They might offend and you know, it's often been said, It's all about intent and there are some more research that says that's not good enough.
[00:27:45] We know too much now to just sort of overlook people's errors and communication and, and, and put it all down to like, intended badly, we have to take more responsibility for communication. And part of that involves committing to the learning that's necessary to have conversations that won't offend.
[00:28:04] But to understand that there is some psychological risk that comes with participating for both the speaker and the listener and how do we support the organization and preparing for those conversations and preparing for that learning.
[00:28:16] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Well, and it's such an interesting thing because, you know, you mentioned earlier that there could be diversity training or, you know, some kind of workshop and that in and of itself, there might be some. aha moments for people in some, but they don't, they're not necessarily equipped coming out of that.
[00:28:30] Right. This is true of any kind of training, you know, not just diversity, but
[00:28:34] you know, come out of it and well, what do I actually do with it? What does it look like in practice? So how can an organization best like just a starting point support people. You know, the white male who feels a bit defensive and is so worried about putting a foot wrong, you know, saying the wrong thing.
[00:28:48] And so they don't say anything or, you know what I mean? What, like, if there's that day-to-day support, what does that look like? Do you think?
[00:28:55] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Yeah.
[00:28:56] know, it's interesting. And I think there's a couple of different answers from that, because if you think about DEI work, it really happens at the individual, the group and the systemic level. And I think how I would answer that question would depend on,
[00:29:07] you know, which of those lenses we're applying.
[00:29:09] So I'll start with sort of, as at the individual level is a good example. Jennifer Brown. One of the things that she's done in a number of her, her talks and in her courses is she has leveraged, what's called the diversity iceberg to talk about what lies above and below the line of visibility and like an iceberg.
[00:29:28] Typically, what people see about us is about 10% of who we actually are. The other 90% tends to be invisible. And that's actually the source of a lot of interpersonal. The things that we can't see, because if we don't see it, we don't prepare for it. Right. And we don't communicate based on an understanding of that.
[00:29:46] It's also where you see that intersectionality that we talk about. So for those who aren't familiar with the term intersectionality, it's that idea that.
[00:29:55] People are often oppressed or experience oppression based on a particular identity, but none of us are a single sort of monolithic identity or have a single aspect to our identity.
[00:30:07] So for example a black woman would experience oppression as both a woman and as a person of color. And so. Her experience as a black woman, she may experience multiple different kinds of oppression as a result of that intersectional identity. So understanding that even white men. Have these intersectional identities and may experience different kinds of advantage or disadvantage based on what's below the waterline.
[00:30:35] So for example, if you had sort of a white executive and you've got talking, you did this exercise, you might find out that they are in. From disordered use of alcohol or drugs, you might find out that they are retired military man you might find out they are the father of a child with a disability.
[00:30:52] You might find out their first language isn't English. You might find out they they had experienced a point in their life where they were unhoused. Like you never know who you're talking to. And so just making sure that. At the first level, they understand how different dimensions of diversity work and how intersectionality works.
[00:31:09] And then also to understand the structures of power and how power gets used and how that Can be used for good, not just for bad. And so what's the role that white men or white women can play in creating more equity, inclusion, and belonging in our workplaces by understanding the dynamics of.
[00:31:27] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Can you tell us a little bit more about, you know, you said structures of power that can be used for good and for bad. So to say, say it a little bit more around that.
[00:31:35] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Let me sort of draw on this example, because I think it'll kind of address two things in one. When we talk about systems level changes or group changes, a great example that always comes to mind for me is recruitment. So when we talk about equitable and inclusive recruitment, it's not just about how do we see the pipelines or seed the pools to be more diverse, but it's how do we actually structure. The actual selection process, the interview process, how do we approach reference checks? How do we manage the onboarding and orientation process? How do we manage their performance? What kind of promotion criteria do we set and on and on through sort of that employee life cycle lens. And I think that's a really powerful way to look at it.
[00:32:18] So I'll take an example, let's say. Normally you conduct an interview, you have a series of questions. Maybe you have five people. To be interviewed that day. Maybe every time somebody comes in the room, we mix up the order of the questions.
[00:32:32] You have different people asking different questions. Maybe you leave some questions off with some people. You don't use all the questions that you had planned to say, because maybe you get chatting about your favorite baseball team or you find out you graduated from the same Alma mater. Do you know what I mean?
[00:32:46] So just looking at that process, how do you make that more inclusive and equitable? And there's all kinds of, sort of ways that.
[00:32:53] you can do that. So you can use competency-based interviews to sort of level the playing field and avoid unnecessary credentialism you can create like a scoring rubric so that you know what you're looking for, your scores, know what you're looking for.
[00:33:07] And there you're all rating against the same expectations. You can make sure that every. Interview he gets asked the same questions in the same order, by the same person. You make sure you take fact-based notes just in case you ever find yourself in an unfortunate position where there's a legal issue, you've got fact-based notes.
[00:33:27] And that you make sure that you, where possible you anonymize work samples or pieces of project work. So just taking every opportunity to. Limit the bias that could be entered into even things as simple as limiting small talk, because small talk favors extroverts it may introduce new biases into the process.
[00:33:48] So there's all kinds of tricks of the trade that you can use. And you can sort of embed that all through. Whole process to make sure that you're attracting the most diverse pool offering the most equitable experience. And you're delivering the most bias-free outcome that you can it's human nature to be biased, but it's up to us to check that.
[00:34:05] And when. Look at it from a group level. A great thing to do is actually have like an inclusion monitor or somebody who can sit in on the meetings and that could be somebody in HR. It could be somebody else. Who's just listening to the conversation, the interviews, the scoring, the discussion, and making sure that if somebody appears to be like leaning on a bias or an unexplained preference, or they're talking about gut instinct is really having that kind of monitor, be the conscience of the group.
[00:34:33] And really in a very safe kind of non-confrontational way, just encourage people to think about, like, what do you think that gut feeling is telling you? Where does it come from and why? And should you be listening to that? Or might that be biased?
[00:34:46] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Fascinating any thank you. Cause you've given us some really, really practical examples of how you can really leveraged all of those opportunities. You mentioned to limit bias, right? And to check ourselves. Yeah.
[00:34:57] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: and I have to say one thing that just sort of jumps out at me too. And I know there's a lot of conversation lately about using artificial intelligence to help screen candidates and in the HR process and using a lot more asynchronous video platforms to do. Pre-screening for candidates and there are definitely some issues that any company who's looking at that should be investigating to make sure that they're eliminating potential bias.
[00:35:20] So we know that in the first few seconds of an interaction, we make a lot of judgments about the people that we see. So we have. Extra extra careful in that scenario to make sure that if you have people videotaping themselves, not only are you potentially intruding into their personal space and giving yourselves opportunities to judge, maybe, what class they might be part of, you know, what kind of living arrangement, whether they're renters or owners, you know, whether they have a dedicated office space or they don't.
[00:35:48] Do they seem to be very extroverted and outgoing. Do they have an accent? So we make a lot of staff judgments about people there's even sort of attraction bias, right? A beauty bias that operates. So lots of things to think about. So if people are looking at video interviewing asynchronously or not there are some steps that you can take to try to reduce the amount of bias that plays into that.
[00:36:09] And certainly the placement of that in the recruitment funnel process makes a difference.
[00:36:14] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Well, I think there is a whole, a lot of, of, of
[00:36:19] wisdom there. And certainly the, the credential that you spoke about the certified diversity and inclusion. Now, that's the one where they've changed the name. Right? I think that I know a lot of people in talent acquisition and
[00:36:30] have led that function myself in the past, I think There's a lot there for people to delve into and a lot of, you know, practical changes that wouldn't be so hard to implement. Right. I think, you've taken some of the mystery out of it a little bit today and
[00:36:44] I
[00:36:44] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: good.
[00:36:45] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: that. Yeah.
[00:36:46] Yeah.
[00:36:46] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Happy to do that. And I have a, an equitable and inclusive recruitment toolkit that I offer to my clients to just help demystify it even a little further.
[00:36:54] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, I'll have your contact information in the show notes today. Well, so thank you so much, Carrie, for coming on the show. I'd love to invite you to share one
[00:37:04] more, answer with the audience before we wrap up, which is
[00:37:08] what would you say has been your most important learning experience over the course of your career?
[00:37:14] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: That's interesting. I have to say probably one that I'm super proud of. And I had, you know, not a huge role in it. A small part. I was the director of entrepreneurship in the province at the time, and charged with leading a group of wonderful professionals who were helping to design and deliver. Granting and programs under the entrepreneurship pillar of the youth jobs strategy, which proved to be a, a four year, $565 million investment on the part of the province.
[00:37:41] And we did about a hundred million dollars in programming on that. And one of the projects that I was part of the team and won an amethyst award, which is the highest honor you can get in public service. And it was for a project called building up. And Kim is of remote far north indigenous community here in Ontario.
[00:38:00] And it's a very sort of economically depressed area. They struggled to find access to clean drinking water. It's a bit of a food desert. They have the highest rate of suicide. I believe nationally, if not beyond that. Really really tough to make a difference as an outside organization, trying to sort of build them up.
[00:38:23] And I had the absolute pleasure of engaging in some really innovative processes to join a partnership with local youth activators, the band council and elders, the opp multiple ministries within the provincial government and an organization, which some of your listeners may be familiar, familiar with.
[00:38:42] Right to play. And we use to design charrette process to really
[00:38:48] bring groups together under what a former guest of yours referred to a sort of empathetic design or collaborative planning process to design a really innovative program that would both. Build up community infrastructure to support ceremony and to support tradition in the community and also provide their youth with basic construction skills.
[00:39:06] And it was just, you know, it wasn't, It wasn't the award, although that was lovely. It was just learning the power of collaboration and the power of an, I hate to say it because it's such an overused expression, but that thinking outside the box. Right. And really de-centering. Ourselves in that process and understanding that the most impactful change comes when the people who are most effected by it are leading it, they're driving it.
[00:39:33] And that was a big learning because we're often in our careers, I think, called on to show our expertise in things. And sometimes being an expert is really about being a facilitator.
[00:39:43] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: It is you're facilitating discovery. Absolutely. Oh, I love hearing about that experience. I think next time you and I talk, I'd like to hear some more about
[00:39:52] that. That sounds like a very, very powerful learning in life experience. Really. Thank you for sharing it.
[00:39:58] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:40:00] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--61157a395affa4006d0cfc64--lollyg: My pleasure, my pleasure. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show Carey and I'll I'll make sure to share a couple of resources. You've you met, you've mentioned today on your contact information in the show notes.
[00:40:10] carrie-burd-jan-27-300-pm_recording-1_2022-03-23--t08-30-43pm--guest335983--carrie-burd: Perfect. Thanks so much. Have a great day.
