Inclusion@work: The Resistance Metric - Turning Pushback Into Progress

So these impact accelerators for those that have been never been to our at work programs before, these are really designed to be tactical,

to be focused sessions on models and frameworks and ways that you can start to approach these things within your organization.

So yes, we are gonna have the panels, the open conversations, but these impact accelerators are really gonna be more presentation and tactical focused.

And we built it out into two separate themes. And I've already seen some of the questions in the chat. So, uh, these are hopefully gonna be answering

some of those questions for you. So this first impact accelerator, we really themed it around the resistance piece, right?

Like, how do we turn pushback into progress? How do we really start to understand where resistance is coming from?

How do we also revisit the data and the business impact and the opportunity that's behind engaging with this? So that being said, uh, Clara, what do you think?

Should we welcome our first speaker up to this? Yeah, I'm so excited for this session. Um, I think it's important to remember

that resistance isn't always personal, it's pattern. And to speak on what Jill mentioned before, um, we've been here before.

So if we can spot the pattern, we can start to shift it. So I'm really excited to bring in our first speaker and welcome Den, who is the director of DEI, enterprise

and Talent Solutions at Aquent. He's gonna take us through the neuroscience behind resistance

and how to distinguish between both the business and the social impact and how we can create better strategies for buy-in.

So, welcome, Dan, take it away. Awesome. Thank you so much, Clara. I appreciate the, the introduction here.

And just gimme two seconds, shall to figure out the, the tech here and I will share my screen. Um, let's see here. All right.

Okay. I think I can't see the chat anymore, but hopefully you all can see my screen. Okay. All right. Well, uh, uh, hello everyone again.

Um, I'm so honored to be here with so many talented individuals like yourselves who are really shaping the future of work.

Um, obviously why would you be here otherwise? Um, you know, with 20 years working alongside business leaders across industries, from finance to retail,

to tech, and, and yes, even the NFL, I've seen what works and what stalls real inclusion efforts. Now today, um, I invite you to ground our session

in a growth mindset. So, uh, and I want this to be as interactive as possible, even though I can't see you.

So if you could in the chat, just type the words growth or, or send me an emoji just to let me know that you're, you're plugged in, uh, that would be amazing.

Awesome, awesome. That's it. I can feel the switch being turned on right now. So thank you. So, as we all know, DEI, it's,

it isn't a checkbox, right? It's a capability. And just like any business capability,

it requires consistent iteration. You know, we don't wait for crisis, for a crisis or a campaign launch to reactivate the work.

Instead, uh, the panel talked about this earlier. You know, we build systems that improve the think consistently.

So I always challenge leaders to think of DEI more as almost a product or a service that they're giving consumers, right?

Uh, personally, I went to school for, uh, commercial design and finding the balance of form and, and function still fascinates me to this day.

And I invite you today to review your work through that lens. So let me ask you something.

What are you designing for when no one's looking? Where in your organization does equity only show up after something breaks?

And how much time and energy do we spend reacting instead of actually aiming? You know, motivation in business doesn't come from

compliance, right? It really starts from vision. And so it also starts from a future

worth actually aiming for. And when it comes to DEI, we spent way too long defending, okay?

And today I want us to, I wanna pull us back into the posture of actually aiming where we don't wait for performance reviews

or press releases to align, but we lead from the future. So here's our paradigm shift. You know, what if resistance wasn't your

obstacle, but your compass? And what if your most reluctant moments weren't threats, but actually signals?

And what would change if your DEI strategy started with performance design and not just these, uh,

what I call cultural band-aids, right? And today I really want us to reframe resistance. We'll use it to sharpen our systems

and explore how embedding equity, inclusion and diversity into infrastructure is how you unlock that traction.

Not just alignment, but I wanna get us to competitive advantage. Okay? All right. So here's the path that we'll take.

Uh, we'll begin by exploring why even the best intended, the best funded DEI efforts stall out. And then we'll, we'll zoom in on resistance, again, not

to eliminate it, but to understand it. And then from there, we'll explore how to decode what that resistance is in a way that lets you design smarter,

not just always harder and reactive, right? And then finally, we'll close by translating what these insights are into action, um,

and actions that will elevate your credibility and again, uh, your outcomes. Now, uh, to start, I wanna set the scene,

and we, we actually talked about this a little bit in the, um, in the panel here, but I wanna set the scene for DEI today.

You know, if we look back, even post 2020, right? So, um, DEI saw a surge of attention and investment, but just five years later, momentum

has slowed, and that slowed is being a generous term. As you can imagine, uh, many executives are asking, what are we actually solving?

And that's, again, lucky if they're asking any questions at all, and not just, uh, folding back. Meanwhile, our employees, our team members, are watching

for action, not just announcements. And when trust erodes, silence grows, right? So hr, uh,

and DEI leaders are now tasked with, uh, a dual burden, right? So they need to prove the value of DEI

and then also rebuild trust. And this isn't about optics anymore, it's about operational relevance.

And the Supreme Court's, uh, you know, 2023, affirmative action ruling intensified the scrutiny on DEI, right?

It prompted many companies to either redefine or rebrand their DEI efforts. So we talked about this at the panel,

but, you know, um, they may be amplifying terms like engagement, right? Or culture rather than diversity or equity.

And they're doing that to avoid, again, the legal and political pushback, as we've seen from companies like John Deere

or Harley Davidson, um, who've rolled back on some of their programs. Now, with all this resistance to DEI,

do we back down or can we use what we're learning from the current climate to actually rebuild even better? And I wanna start with a disconnect, right?

So on your screen here, you'll see a study published in Forbes just in June of this year, right?

This year, 2025 found 83% of CEOs, say DEI is a priority, but only 38% say it's actually embedded

into operations. And that gap is where trust erodes and efforts stall.

And think about, for example, a time when you launched something with what you felt was real energy, say like a, a pilot program

or a leadership toolkit, and then nothing happened. Engagement didn't shift, culture didn't budge, and often it's because the initiative touched the system,

but didn't actually move it, and it didn't reach the levers of influence. So newsflash, we, we haven't established it already.

We've moved beyond DEI as a initiative, it's a business lever. And we know that these principles drive innovation

and improves communication and also de-risk decision making, right? So these are performance dynamics.

If we only talk about DEI as representation, we miss the point, the disconnect between intention and integration.

That's where we find the resisting, uh, resistance thriving. And as business leaders, you feel this most, right? The, the push to deliver change without the structure

to actually sustain it. So what's actually happening, um, when DEI efforts stall, you know, too often we think res

of resistance is personal, right? But it's often structural and resistance is feedback from the system.

It signals that a proposed shift, whether it's a training, a new policy, or even just messaging, uh, among leadership, it's bumping into uncertainty,

power dynamics, or, uh, change oversaturation, right? Um, so what if instead of solving to treat the symptom, we treated the resistance

as our entry point into the system. So when we encounter resistance that, you know, that's really not the end of the road,

it's the starting point for diagnosis and for surfacing business barriers that have likely been unaddressed for a long time.

And there's a concept that I want to talk about, um, in medicine called, uh, referred pain, right? Um, you, you feel it here in your head,

but it's actually stemming from all the way in your pinky toe, right? So, DEI works the same way.

Um, you might see low engagement in your leadership or mentorship program and think it must be the curriculum, right?

But the root issue is actually perhaps a lack of transparent promotion pathways. Or you might see gaps around, uh, management

or manager capability. But the real issue is that feedback isn't normalized in your organizational culture.

So if we keep treating systems we never get to, or symp symptoms, excuse me, we never get to the actual system.

So just like referred pain in the body, organizational pain shows up in one place, but actually starts somewhere totally different, right?

How many of you have been asked to do a training, uh, you know, to solve some kind of problem, and you're like, again, and you're, you're asked

for a training because that's visible, right? And it's palatable, but the source could be systemic, like broken feedback loops

or, um, managers who are avoiding hard, uh, conversations. So if we don't investigate, we reinforce the wrong solution. I love this quote here from James Clear.

Um, I think it aligns perfectly with not just our work, but our intentions, especially when we're talking about business impact.

And so I'm, I'm tapping into that growth mindset again. So, uh, I'm, I'm gonna pause here for some of y'all. If you wanna write this, uh, quote down

or screenshot it right now, I'll give you a couple of seconds to do that. Um, because I think when we,

when we're focusing on our systems, we could, again, have the best intentions, but we're gonna always fall to the level of our systems.

Now, uh, what happens when we go tinkering with systems? We're, we're bound to get pushback, right? So let's dig into this really fascinating realm

of neuroscience and what we often call, uh, resistance in the workplace. You know, again, we might assume

that people are ha are being difficult or playing maybe even political games, but it's often deeply rooted in

how our brains are wired, right? From our, uh, a amygdalas to our basal ganglia in order to, uh, perceive threat and respond to change.

So, we'll explore why some people might push back, again, not out of malice, but from a very human desire for safety and predictability.

And as business leaders, you know, um, you probably have felt like you're speaking a different language when you're trying to implement change.

And that could be because we're not speaking again to the primal parts of our brains that are ha hardwired really

for self preservation. Alright? So resistance is isn't monolithic, right? So it's not just one thing. It has faces.

And here are three really important types to look for. Um, you know, cognitive, cognitive resistance says, I don't get it right?

Cognitive resistance shows up as confusion. Uh, emotional resistance says, I don't like it, or I don't buy it.

It's emotional. Again, emotional resistance shows up as, um, fear and sometimes even fatigue, right?

Um, behavioral resistance says I'm not doing it. Behavioral resistance is a avoidance. So, um, when we look at these types of resistance, clarity

addresses cognitive resistance, trust addresses, emotional resistance, accountability addresses behavioral resistance.

So your job, again, isn't to eliminate the resistance, it's to decode what it's telling you. And if we don't know which one we're facing, we, uh,

we can't really tailor the right response. Each one, you know, gives us this different access point. Alright? So, uh, we'll dive into, uh, another, uh,

dimensions of resistance here. You know, when we look at personality differences, uh, we've all seen it, individuals just seem more open

to change naturally than others, right? Um, and those who aren't, they, they, um, on, on the opposite end, I should say, those, they have a, um,

they're not trying to be difficult, but again, they're inherent ri wiring prefers consistency. So it's about how predispose someone is to

new ideas and experiences. So for example, in a company rolling out, let's say a new a TS applicant tracking system, right?

One recruiter might jump in eagerly exploring all the different features, right? And suggesting tweaks and another resist logging in at all.

Um, and then we have the stability drive. This ties directly into that primal need of certainty we discussed earlier

and resistance here, you know, it's, it stems from, uh, how much someone finds, uh, you know, comfort in routine and clear guidelines.

So, for example, during a, a company reorg and an employee who might be in the same role for 15 years struggles not just

because they dislike their new manager, but because the shift disrupts their routines, uh, the routines that they've been relying on daily.

Um, the next one, this is a big one, the power dynamics, right? So in cultures where there is a significant power gap,

resistance might not even be openly displayed, right? It's less about direct confrontation and more about subtle noncompliance, okay?

So this can be incredibly tricky to spot because it's not loud. Um, it's often in a passive form of pushback, right?

Who remembers here if you put it in the chat or react, uh, with emoji, who remembers quiet quitting? That's a good example, right?

Uh, and then finally, individual versus group. Uh, you know, this dimension determines opposition is shown by like a person or a collective, right?

So an example of this is, uh, you know, let's say a tech startup, uh, you know, who has one engineer publicly challenging the return

to office policy on Slack, right? Uh, meanwhile the, uh, Japanese base, uh, branch, uh, the entire department, um,

delays the whole compliance policy, right? Short showing a more coordinated group level resistance, right?

So understanding these dimensions, again, can help us see resistance not as the enemy, but as a multifaceted, uh, signal, right?

Each telling us something different. Now, um, again, our brain is wired to detect threat.

So in our work especially, uh, we might unintentionally trigger that, uh, threat detection. So I wanna introduce this scarf model, um,

and it gives us a language for this. So when, uh, uh, when pushback, uh, when someone pushes back, you know, asks,

did we challenge their sense of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, or fairness, that shift helps you address the fear,

not just the be behavior itself, right? So the scarf model helps us make resistance predictable, and it reminds us that change threatens

our sense of security. So if your DEI efforts, someone's autonomy, your fairness, yes, it's gonna be resisted, right?

So how do we create that safety? Um, well start with how you respond to questions, right? So show curiosity and not defensiveness,

and then model vulnerability. When leaders express that, you know, they're still trying to figure it out, they signal that learning is welcome.

And, and then third, acknowledge uncertainty. Instead of pretending everything is solved, we got it all figured out, right?

Invite people into shaping the path forward, right? Um, I think Jill mentioned in the panel that, that two-way street, uh,

or that two-way solution, finally, frame the framework as learning. And remember what I said earlier, if DEI is a product

or a service, you have to iterate, right? Um, again, this isn't judgment, it's growth. And these are, um, strategic levers to reduce,

uh, friction, right? And how psychological safety, right? We say it a lot, but how it becomes strategy, okay?

So instead of jumping into defend, again the work, we wanna pause and ask, what is this resistance protecting? Where is this system, uh, perhaps overindexing on, um,

on status, certainty or control? And DEI gives us the framework to build better, not just respond better.

And when we design for system systemic clarity, job levels, compensation, equity, team dynamics, you know, we don't just gain buy-in, we build that credibility.

And this is the, this is really the pivot, right? So DEI strategies let us integrate structure. So when a stakeholder comes to you, um, you know, with,

with a problem, don't treat it just like a, a order at, you know, burger King. Uh, treat it like a clue, right?

Sit beside them, um, and ask like, what's driving this? This isn't about, um, you know, again, this isn't about compliance, it's about co-creation.

And I wanna emphasize that co-creation, because in my work, I found that lasting change happens when team members are

part of that change. Okay? So remember, your credibility grows not from always saying yes,

but from asking the right next question. So I challenge you and invite you to think of, um, yourself almost as a shepherd, right?

As you're, as you're building out these systems. Alright? So let's bring it home. Uh, you know, again, training, it has its place,

but when systems are misaligned, it's not a learning issue. It's, it's really a design issue. So no matter how powerful your DEI strategy is,

if it's not embedded into, uh, performance reviews, hiring rubrics, um, you know, incentive structures, it really won't scale.

So DEI without systems is more like philosophy, right? Um, versus actually infrastructure. And so don't build training around performance systems

that lack transparency, um, but also don't run inclusive hiring workshops in a process that blocks flexibility, redesign that system

and you gain traction when systems, uh, people interact with every day reflect those same principles, right? That's how we turn, uh, uh,

how resistance really turns into resilience. Okay? And so systems, uh, you know, system redesigns, it, it's not top down, it's really distributed.

And in this climate, it's really a winning strategy. Um, and I always want to emphasize like having that employee driven, uh, mentality,

you need insights from the edges, right? ERGs, uh, aren't just affinity groups that like to hang out, or at least they shouldn't be.

They should also be cultural analysts. They often see what like headquarters can, you know, so you wanna know where onboarding breaks

or where inclusion fails. Ask your ERGs, right? Fund them, measure them, reward them for their insight,

not just event planning. And when you're, um, when your redesign also includes the lived expertise

of those closest to exclusion, you get sharper more accurate solutions, right? So all this being said, where does this leave us really,

I hope, is that it leaves us with a map, right? Every resistance point is data. Every request is a clue.

Your job is to follow the signal, not just to what's being asked, but what's really breaking underneath.

So when we decode the ass, we redesign the structure and build trust through that safety.

And then we turn DEI from a program again, to a performance strategy. That's the bridge from, again, ownership to outcomes.

So where does this leave us again, with that map? Um, and, uh, you know, with your job to follow that signal and to be that bridge from intent to impact.

Alright? And with that, y'all, um, I'd love to connect with each of you. We'll leave a couple minutes. I know we are a little bit,

uh, behind on time here, but I'd love to connect with each of you. Um, and I, I regularly host, you know,

small private round tables with senior DEI leaders because I believe in the power of courageous coalitions and community.

So if you have your phone, Sandy, you can scan the QR code, uh, email below, but wanted to leave it up for any questions.

Hey Dan, I'll come back up here. And, uh, one incredible presentation I second with Lori kinda shared,

and I actually didn't really know much about the scarf model before, but I really like the breaking it down and also the connection you created between that

and creating psychological safety on how we can start to kind of navigate and have these conversations and frame it effectively as learning.

And I'd love to maybe just ask you a follow up questions on the dimensions of resistance that you talked about.

Now, we talked about like personality differences, stability, desire, power dynamics, and the individual versus group piece.

I'm just curious, like, have you found certain, uh, of those resistant buckets showing up more and and has that shown up more in certain industries or groups?

Like, I'm just curious of which one of those, like areas of resistance have you seen to be most relevant? Yeah, I think it really depends on, um,

what I've seen in a way. Some what, uh, like I've seen a trend of it de uh, showing up like say power dynamics, right?

Like in these smaller, uh, companies, that one, that's huge, right? Small to midsize companies or flat companies

or even startups, you see that power dynamic, um, where, uh, again, folks might not have the psychological safety to speak up and then that silence is a killer

because then you're, you're, you're almost flying blind, right? Because you're like, where do I go?

'cause I'm not getting the feedback. 'cause people are afraid, right? Um, versus, um, uh,

when we talked about individualism versus co collectivism, a lot of times larger organizations, you, you start to see how that, that kind of shows up.

And then from the personal, um, di per, uh, personal differences, right? Um, when you're working one-on-one with leaders, you start

to see that shows up. So those dynamics and then also the situation that you're in, um,

you'll be able to kind of see like, okay, here's what you know, uh, here's what I'm seeing now from this person, from this.

And collectively all that data can help you navigate. Does that, does that help answer? Yeah. Okay. It reminds me of some of the,

the lessons I learned from a book called like Super Connectors. And it talks a lot about really just understanding like

what conversation are you really having? Yeah. Like you, people are showing up in a certain way, there's a certain context and situation.

And for you to be more strategic as a practitioner and a strategic partner to DEI or inclusion, um, you gotta be able to kind of recognize

what is, what situation are you in right now? And then based on that situation, there's gonna be a certain type

of resistance as you laid out. And use that as a map as you even talked about, so that then you can go into that situation more effectively.

Absolutely. And can I just double click on that? So the book that he's mentioning is Super Communicators by Charles Duhig, if I'm not, yeah, yes, go get it.

Because it's a, it's a great, that's awesome. It's one of those books where you, as you read it, your mind's like exploding the entire time.

It's so easy, but yet, so like, uh, duh. Like, but yes. Great, great book. Yeah. Well, uh, that being said, as Den shared,

I shared his LinkedIn in there, um, you shared kind of the URL I've heard amazing things about these round tables and these peer group discussions

that he is helping facilitate in this space. So check that out, connect with him on LinkedIn, you know, ask him for these slides.

I don't know, like pick his mind a little bit. Obviously he has a lot to share. But Dan, thanks for being just such a, a, a,

a spearhead leader in this space and continuing to share this wisdom with our network. This was a incredible session.

Thank you. Thank you all. Appreciate you. Alright everyone, I'm excited. How about that? For our first impact accelerator, pretty awesome, right?

Like we really start to dig into some more of the frameworks. And I think this is where all of you

that are attending right now, I would really start to think like, okay, how can I take this framework? How does this show up within the organization

that I am operating within? And I think as we know, as practitioners, you can't just plug and play any framework.

So you're gonna have to think with some critical thinking, creative thinking kind of exercises of like, how do we mold this?

And as you think about those dimensions of resistance, for example, how do we mold this in a way that fits the context that I'm in so that I can be strategic

and actually move the needle, right? So that is something I would challenge all of you and I would even love to see in the chat, like,

are there certain specific areas of resistance you're experiencing? Is it more of a power dynamic?

Is it more of the personality piece? Is it more of an individual one-on-one basis or stability piece?

Like where is the resistance for you that you might wanna dial into for that specific scenario? So that being said, I'm excited

to welcome up our next leader who is gonna share some of our own types of strategies in this space. And specifically I think one thing I'm excited about is this

whole concept of like unlocking and tapping into that blue ocean and what comes when you can leverage

and understand the social science behind these things and tap into that opportunity. Like there's this whole sea

of blue ocean opportunity waiting for you to tap into. You just need to make sure you're approaching it with the like, right, psychology

and social science to unlock that impact. So that being said, I'm gonna stop sharing here. We're gonna welcome up Lori Adams Brown, director

of Global Talent Development Hive Solutions. Let me welcome her up. Lori, great to see you. And uh, thanks for being here with us.

Yeah, it's an honor. I learned so much from Dan. I was taking so many notes and I'm wanting to go back and watch that recording again

because it was just full of great information, but I'm really excited to be able to share today. Let me get my PowerPoint pulled up here. Just a second.

Oops. All right, can everybody see that? Looks good. Got it. All right. Always get a little, never know

with the technical difficulties, but it's so great to be here with everyone today. Um, maybe everybody do a little stretch as we're sitting

between lots of sessions and taking all of this. And if there's anything I've learned about being a leader, it's building your resilience is absolutely key.

And so I'm talking about Blue Ocean Strategies today. Um, as you know, sharing how inclusion is not just a value, it's a leadership strategy that drives performance,

innovation and resilience. But one of the reasons I love Blue Ocean strategy is because I love the ocean.

So, um, yes, that is a part of my upbringing. I grew up in the Caribbean, I was, um, just a little fish as a child.

And so, um, the ocean is a place that builds my resilience. And it's also, and it turns out a great strategy when we think about this

concept of inclusion and how we're forming resistance. And I think part of resistance means caring for ourselves and, and being aware of what builds our own res resilience

as leaders as we do this work, which is so important. And so, um, yes, go the next slide here. Ooh, having trouble. Why is it not advancing?

Sorry about that. There we go. So I dunno if you've heard of this word, and if you have, please put it in the chat, the lasso file.

This was a new word to me a couple of years ago. So as a person who loves the ocean and wants to live near it,

this term derived from Greek words, the lasso, which means sea and philos, which means loving, um, is actually a word that has helped me

understand more about myself. And I think self-awareness is such a key part of leadership. So a couple of years ago I heard this word

and I don't necessarily love labels being put on me, but this one I took on as a word that described me at my most authentic core.

And if you can relate, put a little beach sign or beach in the chat. Um, I love being near water and um,

although my husband loves Denver and would like to move there, so all the Colorado people, no offense to you, Denver's a gorgeous city

and I have great friends from from college that live there and we love to visit. But I always say, if you could move Denver

to the California coast, we have a deal. And since I grew up in the Caribbean and then I worked in the islands

of Indonesia straight outta grad school, and then I worked on the island of Singapore for 10 years. Now I live 20 minutes from the beaches

of Santa Cruz here in Silicon Valley. And I'm honestly my most relaxed and happy self at the beach.

Um, so every summer there's always beach trips. We went to Jamaica this year and it's just a way I build my resilience.

But it turns out there's some great research around this out of Ohio State University that shows that living within 30 miles

of a coastline helps you live longer. And our nervous systems, which we just heard a lot about in the previous um, session, they're influenced by

negative ions, particularly those found near the ocean, which can have a calming effect and improve our mood, which can we all use a little more of

that these days with all the geopolitical shifts and how wild the world is right now. Um, but these ions, often gener generated

by crashing waves are believed to increase serotonin levels in the brain contributing to feelings of happiness and relaxation.

And it turns out the color blue of the ocean also plays a psychological role in relaxation. So staring at the ocean actually changes our brainwaves

frequency and puts us into a mild meditative state. So maybe just imagining the ocean is one of the things we can do just in really hard days when we

have been triggered and people aren't using those models that we just heard about and they're not cultivating psychological safety around us,

maybe just imagining those waves at the beach can be helpful. But the ocean can be also a scary place for some people.

And so the very thing that could cause someone joy and the spirit of inclusion could cause somebody else to be afraid.

And so it could be a scary place if you have a fear of heights. So snorkeling may not be your thing

and if you've been in a boating accident, a hurricane, or even in a tsunami, this might be something that causes you fear.

And I have both reactions to oceans because although I love them, I also straight out of grad school worked alongside the Ministry

of Education in Indonesia in my early career. And then I landed a new role in community development just as the big Indonesian tsunami hit 20 years ago.

And so I got very involved in disaster relief efforts at that point with the un. But one of the things I learned during

that time was not only a healthy fear of the ocean, but it, I also learned how, um, inclusion is, um, it's bringing in different voices, it's listening

to different people's perspectives. And I, we were able to see a much better, faster response to our tsunami efforts, um,

as we were more human-centered in this very rapidly changing environments where with high stakes and listening to understand was absolutely

key in that effort. So as we look at some of the social science around this, and in a second I'm gonna unpack more

of the blue ocean strategy, if you're not familiar with that, but I've always been fascinated by how people work and build community together across work

cultures and across the globe. Social science has much to teach us about how we cultivate thriving work cultures across all

industries and it helps to position our companies with differentiators. So we hear a lot about differentiators when it comes

to people looking for new roles or career opportunities, but companies could actually consider more differentiators as we think about inclusion.

So I'm gonna ask you a couple questions and you can drop your answers to these questions in the chat.

The first question is, what sets one company culture apart from another? And then another question you can answer both are just one,

what makes someone choose to work in one company culture versus another? So what sets one company culture apart from another?

Or what makes someone choose one company over culture over another? I'd love to hear your experiences on that.

'cause I think some of us have had career pivots, or we've at least changed companies once or twice and we can compare those different ones.

And I think that how we experience those cultures can be very unique to each of us. So let's begin by exploring what we mean

by social science in the context of work. So social science includes disciplines like organizational psychology, sociology, anthropology, behavioral economics.

These fields really help us understand how people behave in organizations and how cultures shape decisions.

Also, it talks, it helps us understand how systems influence those outcomes. So to dig a little more into that, let's look at

how social science insights actually translate into the business impact. Uh, question for you. Do any

of you spend time reading articles at the intersection of social science and business? If so, feel free to link any good articles

for us in the chat to check out. I know many of us here like me are, I call myself a self-professed learn it all.

So with so much changing and talent development right now, learning from each other is really key here.

Years ago, many of us read the results of the project Aristotle that Google did, where they determined that the cultivation of psychological safety was the

key to successful teams. We've heard this mentioned already in the previous talk, and innovation really is born out of that ability

to question or challenge thinking. And when the sociology of how managers interact with their teams matches business outcomes, we know

that human-centered work cultures are, are really gonna set us apart from other cultures, especially now with ai.

Um, the key for the future of work is this human-centered approach in partnership with ai.

And so when you have different brains around the table, I want you to imagine that for a second. Having different people, decision makers,

whether it's a corporate board or your executive team or a group of managers, when you have a lot of different types of cognitive diversity there

around the table with different lived experiences, you're gonna have even more opportunity for innovation. But only if you welcome questions

and you welcome pushback with that psychological safety. So understanding team dynamics improves collaboration and it reduces conflict.

Cultural norms also influence how people innovate, take risks and communicate. Um, you know, we had some examples earlier about Japan

and being more collectivists versus somewhere, you know, here in the US we tend to be more individualistic, but that, you know, there's variety within our US culture

because it's a very diverse country. But cultural norms really do influence how people innovate, take risks and communicate.

And inclusive practices lead to higher employee engagement and retention. Many of us know this already, so I'm probably preaching

to the choir, but Mackenzie's research shows that diverse companies are more likely to outperform their peers.

And Gallup also found that inclusive workplaces see higher productivity and lower turnover.

So let's unpack, uh, this blue ocean strategy a little bit. Have you ever thought about a product or an idea for a startup that didn't already exist?

If so, please drop it in the chat. You never know. There might be some dcs here willing to fund your startup. It's worth a try. But, um,

I remember when I was in seventh grade in my international school in Venezuela and our social studies teacher had us all come up with a product that didn't exist

and we had to market it and sell it and present it to the class. Um, but it's not something

that we can just do in an educational setting. It's something that in the business context is extremely important.

So let's connect this to strategy and how it impacts inclusion. Blue ocean strategy is about finding

uncontested market space. So N CED business professors, w Chan Kim and Renee Mabo created the blue ocean strategy

based on over a decade of research as a way for companies to metaphorically swim out of the saturated red ocean filled with sharks.

And the blue ocean strategy argues that leading companies of the future will be successful not by battling their competitors over in the red ocean,

but by creating blue oceans of uncontested market space, open and ripe for growth. And social science helps us uncover unmet human needs

and overlooked customer segments. But it could also help us understand talent pools as well. Well, talent. So by understanding behavior

and culture, we can design products and services that truly resonate. So I'm gonna give you three examples of Blue Ocean strategy

that was used in business, um, the youngest female CEO to ever lead a US initial public offering. Maybe you know who that is,

so I'll give you a chance to guess in the chat. Do you know who it is, the youngest female CEO to ever lead a US initial public offering?

All right, giving you a chance to guess. Well, it's Katrina Lake and yes, the word, the name lake is just fitting quite

nicely with our bluish and strategy. But Katrina Lake, she created a new market space in the highly competitive

fashion retail industry. Stitch Fix, which you may have heard of a personal styling company that mails its customers boxes

of stylish, carefully created clothing. It's really as if customers had their own personal stylists. So Stitch Fix, combined artificial intelligence

and human interaction to create a differentiated and low cost offering. Stitch Fix was founded by a woman

and with 86% of female employees, the company has one of the largest female workforces in the AI space, if not across almost all industries.

And another example is 1999. Peter eo, a world renowned turnaround expert, was appointed CEO of Marvel.

He is credited with taking Marvel from bankruptcy to being acquired by Disney for over $4 billion in just over a decade

by taking a blue ocean turn to focus on non-customer college students. He helped invent characters that were people first

and superheroes second. So Spider-Man, the Hulk Ironman, the X-Men got reframed in this way.

And then a third example is how Nintendo studied non-gamers and invented the we. So these are all examples of blue ocean strategies

of uncontested market space that worked out quite well for these companies. So there's a great bit of research about

how inclusion practices such as giving employees autonomy, which is something we heard earlier in the scarf method, um, on how they work best increase engagement and productivity.

And it allows companies to attract top talent. So if we think about any of you who are working in acquisition, um,

and recruiting, if we think about the blue ocean of talent acquisition, you know, setting more inclusive policies and procedures in our companies will take us out

of a saturated red ocean of those companies who are staying in the status quo right now. So in an era of ai, leaders

with cultural intelligence will have an edge with their global growth with these distributed teams globally that we work on,

where cross-cultural communication is key to both avoid billion dollar mistakes from miscommunication and for bringing global talent

and global business with the clear communication that affects the bottom line. So if you've ever been in a company, a global enterprise

where there was conversations between Japanese leaders and US leaders, you'll often notice there's this miscommunication.

If if there's not clear understanding of cultural intelligence where you know, the Japanese are more likely to read the air

and the US is probably one of the least likely. And according to Erin Meyer's research with the culture map book, if you haven't checked that out,

please do another NCA business professor. Um, she explains these different categories and spectrums of cultures around the world and the US

and Japan are polar opposites on what is called low context, high context communications. So billion dollar miscommunications can happen in global

enterprise if we don't have this cultural intelligence, which is really a huge part of inclusion, which is more global than local and um, in that sense,

but local norms do differ across the oceans, right? So across the globe, um, leaders that spend time learning local norms will take global

enterprise into new, emerging, emerging markets more seamlessly. That's a huge advantage in the future of work.

So culture does play this huge role in how organizations function globally. Half state's cultural dimensions,

which you may have seen help us understand differences in power, distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance and more.

These insights are critical for leading global teams in designing inclusive policies. So Hof, Steve's insights provide tools

to compare cultural profiles. For example, many of you probably use Culture Amp. It's a pretty popular one.

It also offers guidance in global diversity and inclusion and not just based on the country you're in, but on the globe in general.

Those of us here in the Bay Area drive across the Golden Gate Bridge all the time. If you have not had the experience, I hope that you do.

It's, even though we've done it hundreds that maybe thousands of times, it never gets old, never ceases to inspire all and wonder.

This engineering feat is truly amazing. People come from all over the world to admire this, this engineering feat

and the beauty of the Marin Highlands to the north and then the San Francisco cities skyline to the south. But um, we have this blue, deep blue ocean underneath,

you know, there's boats, uh, coming in with shipping from Singapore all across the Pacific into San Francisco every day.

And, you know, bridges serve as this great metaphor of how to find points of connection between humans who have different lived experiences at work.

The human need to belong is across all cultures and types of humanity, but it's also a key aspect we all share.

And no matter what our background is, this is true. Our need to belong is very strong. And so we are communicators as humans

and being able to share our perspectives really helps us. It helps us grow and learn as leaders and work in community. Like that growth mindset that we just heard about earlier.

You know, dialogue is something that really requires, we call EQ and cq, right? So emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence.

These are skills that we are upskilling our leaders on right now in the future of work, which is, you know, very AI focused.

And as we bring in these emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence skills and upskill our workforce, we're all better positioned

for a more human centered approach to the future of work and partnership with ai. But when we build bridges and,

and instead of putting up walls, we become intentional about knowing how important representation is at many levels

for innovation and representation has been one of those things that's been really questioned in the current last couple of years in our the United States of America.

And I think that it's important to understand why representation matters for innovation, because it helps eliminate that group think

and, you know, for risk management reasons. And due to the dangers of expensive oversights, when those news perspectives aren't there that can challenge

and see around corners, that's why it's so important for business. You know, influence is a key part of bridge building.

So if you have influence, you are a leader and you can build bridges instead of walls. Building bridges leads to learning and growth,

and humans are really designed for growth. And so when we listen to understand, we often begin to notice how systems and certain processes

and procedures are lacking in fairness, which essentially is what we're talking about when we talk about equity. This leads to ways to treat our talent with equity,

which bridges our entire organization to an environment where respect is embedded. And so I want you to consider implementing this bridge FLA

framework as a cycle that builds momentum. It's not about checking boxes and whenever it has been, that's demoralizing

for, for most of us. It's, it's something that it not only builds momentum, but it's about creating cultures

where different voices are needed and heard different lived experiences bring different skill sets to a team.

And we need those to eliminate group think, which is very, very dangerous for organizations. So I probably, along with many

of you have built more than one global leadership program in my day and in my perspective, a global leadership program really builds the skills leaders

need to lead across difference. So these three pillars I think are really key. So communication, cultural intelligence, self-awareness,

these are all foundational. And in the future of work communication skills that are human centered with emotional intelligence are key.

And cultural intelligence is what will set leaders apart in an increasingly global work environment to give them an edge.

Most leaders are not very self-aware these days. It's, I always say the hardest work of leadership development is my own

leadership, my self-leadership. Um, but becoming self-aware, both in how we build resilience, whether the beach is your place

or not, um, is really important. But those who do the hard work of learning how they show up, for example, what is it like to be led by you?

It really takes time to reflect. Um, but you will have an edge as leaders if you do this. So leadership is changing

and there are blue oceans of opportunities. Um, so to help us get ahead and, and leave that red ocean and it sharks behind for, for clearer, better waters,

bluer waters, inclusion isn't just the right thing to do, it's also smart business. And so it reduces risk, it improves decision making

and drives performance. We have all seen the boycotts and the risks of neglecting inclusion.

So Tesla and Target are two recent examples that have risked their brand by neglecting inclusion. And I work in the Bay Area right across from Tesla,

and it's not only Tesla that's getting protests, but all the little places where Tesla's, um, cars are being sold around here.

And so that lack of inclusion even, you know, what we're seeing people boycotting target that we're very loyal customers, um,

because of what, you know, DEI on boards and that kind of thing. It's very risky for business to pull back on that.

And there's also great research on why it's important to be making sure your corporate board is eliminating group think.

Because McKenzie research has shown that inclusive boards are 43% more likely to outperform 43%, that's a significant data point.

And ignoring it will only leave companies behind in the future of work. So training managers to cultivate an environment

where direct reports can push back and question with psychological safety has, you know, worked out pretty well for

innovative companies such as Google. It also requires having different perspectives on a team who challenge and think differently from the lived

experiences of everybody else. And recruiting on the golf course is not something that should be done with every executive hire

or innovation will suffer and so will the bottom line. So finally, let's talk about action steps. Leaders should invest in organizational research

and listening systems to understand employee experiences. The voice of the employee is really important here. And you know, using behavioral data to inform strategy

and empower different voices and decision making is key. So data speaks, doesn't it? This is what executives wanna know.

And so how is productivity two months after a five day RTO has PTO increased? What about sick days?

Has incr attrition gone up after your RTO of having people in four and five days a week?

How long is it taking to fill executive and managerial roles after this new policy has been implemented? So that's a key understanding of

how it's affecting your ability to attract top talent. Is that harder now because of this new RTO you've implemented?

So designing for belonging and psychological safety is key to innovation, uh, training managers and executives on coaching practices.

This is also something that Google, um, discovered in their project. Oxygen. So having managers be more coaches

is, is really key. And bringing in the EQ and cq, right, that emotional intelligence

and cultural intelligence to cultivate the psychological safety that leads to innovation.

This means increasing the self-awareness, maybe taking a weekend to sit by the ocean and regulate your own nervous system

after a stressful time at work. That's my go-to. And showing up with skills and emotional regulation with tools

provided by social science research of actually how humans work together is really the edge leaders need in the

future of work to get ahead. So OTES inclusion survey shows that inclusive leaders drive better outcomes.

And, you know, finding trainings on how to become more inclusive leaders and start with skills of listening

to understand are really important. The best leaders listen, don't they, and keep listening for the facts

and the feelings and the values. And they don't dismiss, they empathize, but that builds trust.

And trust builds strong teams and strong teams build successful global enterprises. So the Center for Creative Leadership emphasizes the

importance of psychological safety as we see managers need, coaching skills and leadership is changing. I recently spoke with Gary Ridge,

he's the former CEO of WD 40. And when I interviewed him for my podcast, he said that they changed the wording from managers to coaches at WD 40

because he said he didn't want people managing people, he wanted to them to coach them. Even just that small shift changes, mindsets

and changes cultures, you know, and the outcomes are clear. Inclusive practices lead to work cultures where people wanna show up and find work meaningful.

And that is very good for business and it's very good for humans. So I, uh, the call to action is to move

beyond performative inclusion, right? It's not just values on a wall. Let's build cultures where different voices are not just

welcome but needed. And let's not just put these values on a wall and forget about them.

Let's embed them into our policies and our procedures and our behaviors every day because, um, as we show up, as the kind of leaders

who treat others the way we wanna be treated, it's a game changer. And with inclusion and human-centered approaches, the future

of work is really exciting. So would love to connect with any of you. Here's a QR code where you can scan

and download my free guide, the Future Ready Leader, five proven Strategies for building inclusive high performing Teams.

And you can find me on LinkedIn. We'd love to connect with any of you. Thank you so much, Lori.

Is anyone else ready for a nice oceanfront vacation after that? Um, I just really appreciated your thoughtful lens on

how we designed DEI with human behavior in mind, and certainly everyone give Lori some love in the chat. Download her guide, listen to her podcast.

I know I certainly will be, um, from the Blue Ocean mindset to finding new possibilities to using the Bridges frameworks of longing, representation and equity.

You reminded us that inclusion isn't just a feel good concept, it's a leadership strategy, a risk management tool, and a growth engine.

So let's take that as a call to action with us for the rest of today. Thinking not only about why inclusion matters,

but how we can embed it into the DNA of our work. Um, so if you haven't already connect with Lori, let's keep this momentum going.

I'm so excited to introduce and welcome our next leader, Felipe Kino, director of HR Development and culture at PRB.

Felipe's gonna share with us how inclusion can evolve in today's world and how we can keep people centered even

through uncertainty. Welcome, Felipe. The floor is yours. Well, thank you Kiara and uh, Zach,

this has, uh, been a great session. Lori, I love what you shared about just the manager to coaching and just all the insights you gave

because that really is, that shift of that mindset really does help people think differently. So I, I love everything

and I can't wait to listen to, uh, dens and Lori's playback. Um, let me see if I can share my screen here real quick. If not, I might need some help. Hopefully.

Let's see here. Okay, can you see this now on? Okay, good. Yay. It works. That's wonderful.

So, um, is my camera on now? I can't tell if my camera's on, so I'm just gonna keep on going.

All right. Well, um, so first of all, my name is Felipe Cino. I am, uh, the director of HR development

and culture at uh, PRB and I'm also a LinkedIn Top Voice currently. Um, and today we're gonna be talking about inclusion

and belonging in an evolving world because the reality is we have a very, very hectic world that we're living in right now, and

there's a lot of things changing. Let me know in the chat if you feel like just you're putting out fires left and right

and there's just a lot of moving parts and you're not really sure which road to take because it definitely is something that's been challenging

for a lot of us in the HR world. Um, one of the things I wanted to start off with today was reminding people about how evolution.

About evolution, there's one constant in life and that's evolution. You think about the humans evolve, we adapt

to new challenges and opportunities, nature evolves, seasons change, species change, ecosystems rebalance, and then technology even evolves.

Are you still using iPhone four? No, you're probably on iPhone 12, 16, whatever it may be. Um, and each version is learning

and improving from the last. So why would we expect DEI to stay the same if the workplace is changing faster than ever?

So socially, politically, technology wise, then DEI needs to evolve with it too. So today I'm not here to defend DEI as it was, I'm here

to imagine what it can become to adapt, to stay relevant and make sure that inclusion is not just a program, but living an evolving part of the future of work.

Um, so let me see if I can, uh, all right. That's not, uh, showing the,

okay, this is, uh, not working very well here. Um, ZI don't know if, are you able to share my presentation from your side?

Possibly, Yeah. One second. Lemme pull it up.

I'm having a hard time displaying it here for some reason. Okay. In the check. Can you let me know? Can you see the screen, the slides?

Yes. Much better. Okay, perfect. All right. All right, well thanks. So if we go to the next slide then.

I don't know if some of it's, okay, here we go. So, how can inclusion evolve in today's world? So, you know, one point is shifting from big campaigns

to everyday actions. You know, we think about doing all in one. You know, we want it it to work for everybody

and work for everybody, but the reality is everyone's not the same. And so trying to put one solution to solve it

for everybody isn't gonna work. So going to, instead of doing flashy initiatives that draw external criticism

or attention, double down on the small ones daily practices that build inclusion organically, like equitable meeting practices, collaboration decisions,

doing one-on-ones. You know, I do a one-on-one twice a year with every one of my staff.

Every single one of them. It's a 15 minute scheduled event. It can go longer, but that is something that I don't rely just on

surveys to tell me how they're feeling. The surveys are one tool, the one-on-ones are another tool, and then listening to them

in their own environments is another tool. So we have to really change the mindset of how we do it, because the reality is, number two,

moving from identity only lenses to shared human experiences is I think a big part of the change of the evolution

because we have so many people have so many identities, but the reality is people have multiple di uh, identities as well.

And when we look at human interest groups, you bring people together a lot faster sometimes, especially in the smaller organizations.

You know, tell, tell me in the chat, if you're in an organization that's got less than a hundred employees,

because if you have less than a hundred employees, ERG groups are much harder to form because you don't have as many staff that have the interest.

So, doing human interest or human experience or human interest groups, whether it's about reading, whether it's about cooking, whether it's about working out

football, movies, it's about your culture. Invite that 'cause a culture for a company isn't going to be copied from somebody else.

Your culture is unique just like everybody else. So as HR professionals, our job is to be business partners, to partner with the operations,

with the different departments, understand what they need individually so that we can be the most effective for the entire organization.

Which brings you to point number three, recognizing that multiple roles and multiple identities that people hold today.

We all know we have different hats in the workplace, but think about how many people, how many identities people identify with.

You know, and I'm not just talking about, you know, their gender identity. I'm talking about are they a caretaker, are they a parent?

Are they a child? Are they someone that is in school? Are they dealing with neurodiversity? Are they dealing with a disability?

People have so many multiple ident, uh, identities that if you think of just one, you're missing the boat or getting to know them as a human being.

So I, I really want people to recognize and quietly practice and hold that and realize that some people,

their identities are gonna be very, very quiet. They're not gonna be as outspoken. And those are the ones that people forget about sometimes.

But those are the ones that probably have some of the most powerful messages to share. Can you go to the next slide, please?

Um, oh, and I, one thing I'll say about, um, identities, when someone's recognized as identifying as someone who does something, whether it's a caregiver

or whatever the identity is, that builds trust when someone recognizes it and sees it and respects it.

So understand that, that opens up that door to trust. Now, maintaining inclusion and belonging in uncertain times. Again, we are already here.

We talked about psychological safety earlier. I think Lori and Dan both mentioned it. This is something that we cannot assume

that people are feeling psychologically safe unless you are actually talking to them. And you can't do it just by survey.

Again, you've gotta get out there and talk to them. If you have remote employees set up one-on-ones, um, take 'em out to lunch, whatever the case may be.

But it's our job to figure out what works for you. If it's all remote, great. If it's in person, great, whatever you need to do,

but also recognize something. Again, people are different. I, when I did my one-on-ones, I started off by saying,

how's everything going with you today? You know, how, how, what, what's weighing on you right now? Which seems like a very sincere question.

I had one senior executive that replied back saying, well, that's, that's very personal. I don't know if I feel comfortable sharing that.

Now, it took me by surprise because I didn't think I was asking anything personal. But to them that was personal

and they wanted to keep that boundary of privacy. That's okay, that's a form of inclusion. We have to respect that people,

some people just don't feel comfortable or it may take a lot longer for someone to get on that boat with you.

They may wanna see, are you really gonna practice what you preach? Let me sit back and watch first

and see if you actually do it. Um, and then, you know, when we have a chance

to promote opt-in connection opportunities. And what I mean by that is, you know, those voluntary opportunities where you can create things

for small groups. Again, if the masses don't show up, it's not a failure. I used to do events for staff just to get to know each other

and, and let loose after hours or during lunchtime. It'd be game nights. We'd have game days, game afternoons. Um, and during those times people would share stuff

that they were comfortable with, they would share about their culture. They would start learning wine company.

They were all about food. So I was like, let's do cooking videos. Show us how you cook your food so we all can learn.

And we became, we started doing chef videos on YouTube that attracted so many people because they saw us as valuing people's culture.

Because in the videos they were talking about why this, this was so important, where it came from from their country, their grandmother, their upbringing

and all that that they shared just brought everyone closer because all of a sudden someone said, oh, we do that in my culture too.

So bringing those opt-in opportunities, people always say, I don't have time to do something outside of work. I'm too busy. That's fine.

But for every person that says they're too busy, there's probably someone that says, oh, I might be open to it.

So do not dismiss those opportunities. If you're getting five people to that event out of your a hundred employees, that's okay.

'cause those five people, it made an impact. And every job I've done this with, it always grows consistently.

Once I figure out what they like to do, they start talking about it and they become my natural ambassadors to invite people.

And that invites more inclusion. And when you get to know people and they share things that they are not work related, that's

where you really get the magic. And that's why I'm telling you these are very simple things, but here's the challenge for all of us HR professionals.

The more we open the door to opportunities, it takes time to schedule these events. The more we open the doors

to hearing about their different ideas, a lot of us unfortunately are gonna think, oh, I don't have, that's more work for me.

I don't have time for that. But I would ask all of us this question, why did we get into hr?

Did we get in HR because we wanted the fame and fortune of it? Or did we get into it because we wanted

to truly make a difference in the workplace and create a workplace that is helpful and sustainable for the employees

to feel psychologically safe, be able to grow, learn, and be successful. If that's the case, then guess what?

We gotta put a little work into it right now because the world's changed so much and we need to do something.

So can we do the next slide please? Alright, so work related inclusion and belonging practices. Now, so we talked about outside of work,

but inside of work, inviting intentional input and recognizing publicly is huge. How many times have you've been in a meeting

where you're like, all right, anybody have any questions or comments? No. All right, have a great day. The meeting's over.

What if instead you said, Hey Lori, do you have any feedback about this? I know you worked on this in the past

or then I saw you writing down some notes. You, any thoughts? Do you wanna share? Invite them. I say, oh, no, no, I'm good actually. Or you know what?

No, I think we're on the right track. Fine, but invite them, especially the quiet ones because that will open up the door for others

to speak up if they feel like, oh, they do wanna hear our ideas. But if you are like any questions

and you wait like three seconds and say no, alright, great. Good meeting everyone. Have a great day. You're, uh, supervisor

or leader's gonna think they had a great meeting and you're feeling like I didn't get a chance to share my insight.

So it's important. And as HR professionals, I challenge all of us that when we're around that table and we see that happening,

before they say, okay, great. End of the meeting, stop and say, yeah, I'm sorry Jane,

did you have something you wanted to share? I saw you trying to raise your hand a couple times and be that advocate.

Make sure that you help not only that person who wants to speak, but help your leader be a better leader. Um, now rotating meeting leads.

I think there's a common sense, no-brainer here. We rotate, um, senior managers or maybe senior coaches in the future who knows, um,

into our senior executive meetings every week. And that way they have open knowledge as to what we're talking about.

We're being very transparent. They report back things. If there is something that's highly confidential, we will excuse them from that meeting,

but that's fairly rare. So it's important that rotating people into meetings and also rotating people leading the meetings.

It gives people a chance to practice leadership skills, but also get to a chance to hear different perspectives of leadership.

And then the last one is huge. Be transparent with decision making. All right, so here, I don't know how many of you have had

to do with layoffs in the past six to eight months. Many people have. Um, I know that when we did some layoffs, uh, people appreciated not only being able

to give advanced notice that we were being transparent, that we were sending out weekly emails saying this is what it looks like right now.

We have not made any decisions. If we could give people two weeks to a month notice, we would.

Um, and when they all said, let's, let's help people know earlier than later, I was actually the first one to say, oh,

I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if I wanna stress 'em out unnecessarily until we know a hundred percent.

And then one of the other leaders said, I've been working with this team for a long time. They may not like the messaging but they want it.

So we went ahead and did it. I had three different employees that I talked to you after the board and they all said the same thing.

They all said, I said, how you feel about communications? Like, we really hate those messages. They stress us out. They give us so much anxiety.

And I'm thinking, oh, I was right. And they said, but we'd rather know than not know because not knowing is more stressful.

So being transparent is going to reduce the stress and give your employees a chance to stay focused. But also, again, it builds that trust.

When you have that trust inclusion people are more inclined to share about themselves. People are not gonna want to be inclusive

or part of any inclusion if there's not trust. If I don't trust you, I'm not gonna share anything personal about myself because I don't know what you,

if you're gonna throw it back in my face, I don't want you to judge me. I don't know if you're judgmental. So trust has to be there.

Alright, if we go to the next slide, please. All right, now, nine work examples that still build belonging.

Alright, casual team rituals. You know, I know that the pandemic kind of put a squash on people going out for doing softball,

happy hour, doing, uh, Frisbee golf or just going out for like a team building exercise, uh, scavenger hunts.

A lot of those things kind of went away. But those are the things again, just like those game nights bring people together.

If you're fortunate enough to have people local go out and do a afternoon scavenger hunt, go and just do, go balling together, that's team building.

Um, go out and if you have, if there's an annual thing that happens in your town, go take the afternoon

to go enjoy that event. Or that's, you know, the maybe here in DC we have the cherry blossoms

that bloom every April, a lot of employers will say, Hey, let's go down, see the cherry blossoms. Give everybody a break today

and walk around the title license. These are small things, but it helps, um, story and culture swaps.

Okay, so here this is where people want to hear stories. And if you invite them to places to things

that are not exactly work related, they're more inclined to share stories. And that can be something that opens up so many doors.

Um, so I encourage people to open up doors and leaders. We gotta take the lead on this. When I talked about those videos about cooking,

I did the first one and I put it on YouTube and I shared it with the company and then they put it on the company's YouTube page.

And then all of a sudden we had two years worth of cooking videos that we send out to our clients as a virtual cookbook from our employees.

It benefited the company and the employees. It's a win-win. One of the things for me in HR is when people say, what's my job?

I always tell them my job is to make sure that the company and the staff both are successful. And that's hard because a lot of times they don't.

They contradict each other. But that's our goal is to make sure that the staff and the company is as successful as possible

and that we can be there to support that. And when we invite people to share and be vulnerable, that's huge.

And here's where I'm gonna share one of my last points here before we get to the bottom line. Wellness and life resource sharing.

We all talk about psychological safety. Okay? Mental health is huge. So is physical health

and let's be honest, so is financial health. Those are the three key things that if we are not investing in that,

in our employees, missing the boat. When I, my last job before the one I am right now, uh, I was there for 10 years

and we started the wellness program. We had an incentive for them and all they had to do,

it was very easy for them to get the incentive. But what really got it going was when people started doing things together as small groups, Hey, let's compete

and see who can get the most steps, or Hey, let's do this together or let's, you know. And it created comradery.

But the biggest benefit, we had three people lose over a hundred pounds. Seven people quit smoking.

We avoided four surgeries and two people were no longer diabetic and three no longer had high blood pressure medication.

Um, that's the huge impact. Do you realize how much gratitude somebody would have because you help them get into a lifestyle

that helped 'em catch something early? That's culture, that's being meaningful, that's caring. These are the things that if we want people

to feel like we're inclusive, we gotta take action and show 'em that we care enough. And this is one of those ways,

I'll say the wellness program. The one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about it, and I'm sharing this because I don't want you all to wait

until something happens to you to make, to realize how important this is. I was in a very toxic work environment.

I was trying to do the right thing. I was told not to, to do the wrong thing. It was very hard to do. But they

had a w great wellness program. And one of the things about the wellness program was we got discounts on our premiums.

Well, I was 25 points short of that. I needed, the only thing I had not done was get my eye exam. I was like, oh, I don't need new glasses, but fine, I'll go.

I went the, the eye exam, the eye doctor said, uh, you know what, you need to go see an optometrist. And I said, okay. He's like,

there's something with your eye that's not right. I said, okay, I'll schedule something next week. He's like, yeah, you need to go this week

'cause you might go blind in that eye by this weekend if you don't take care of it. And I'm like, what? I had no warning signs,

no symptoms, like I should have. My retina was detaching from my eye and I would've gone blind if I had not caught it in time.

That story is why I'm so passionate about this because as much as that toxic place was, their program helped save my heart.

And that's what I want people to realize is that we don't always realize the ripple effect of what we do in hr,

but we make significant impacts on people's lives at work and at home. And if we can try to do this with sincerity and,

and really a little bit of hard work, it can just make amazing, amazing positive ripples for the business and the staff.

Um, last slide please. So bottom line inclusion does not mean disclosing personal things.

You know, everyone's different during time scrutiny, focus on respect, fairness, voice and connection and evolving.

DEI is not abandoning it. It's rooting it deeper into everything in it everyday culture.

Um, I will say that one of the things that for me, we have actually, we started doing rebranding of DEI and we realized, you know what?

We rebranded it 'cause we had, uh, some money that we were using for our programs and we changed some of the words

and focused more on belonging, dignity, and justice. And those are the three words. But to my earlier point, I didn't wanna just rebrand it

and paint it a different color. I want it to evolve. And that's what this goal was, is to evolve it

and getting the feedback from the staff has been invaluable, both in person and surveys. Um, we'll be using a Gallup survey at the end of the year

to do an annual survey to really capture everything we did in the year to see did we capture it right?

Is it a good pulse and, and did we get the right information? Um, so three different ways of capturing the intention

to make sure that you're being inclusive and creating culture during a time where the world is just crazy.

And if you do one more slide at the end, I think, oh questions, feel free to ask questions. Uh, and then the next slide I guess.

Um, and then feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Um, I'm currently a LinkedIn Top Voice, uh, and I do, uh, live streams.

I do three live streams a week. Uh, two of them were on summer break until September. Uh, that's the workplace flawless hour

and the careers chaos and coaching. And basically, um, those are done on Saturday and Mondays. And then I have my social Saturday chat,

uh, live stream that we do. Uh, it's also a podcast every Saturday at 12 noon. So you can go my page and visit that

and see all those there. And feel free to join us, um, for those events. And as always, I do have, um, I'm founder of Fin Consulting,

so I do consulting on the job on the side for HR services, recruiting, uh, branding and LinkedIn training. Uh, I do a lot of LinkedIn training on the site as well.

And, um, other than that, uh, thank you for your time, Zach and uh, everyone. It's been an amazing, amazing event.

I really appreciate everything that you all have done and, uh, I hope, oh, my camera's still not working. I don't know why. Uh, whatever.

And so, uh, yeah, so I appreciate everyone's, uh, attention and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or reach out to me with any questions.

Thank you so much, Felipe. That was awesome. And I, some of the things I, I appreciate you bringing in some of the elements

of wellbeing into the world of belonging, right? And, and I even think about the elements of bringing employee appreciation into this world

of belonging as well as you were going, I was thinking of like the appreciation languages and making sure we're tailoring the ways

that we're supporting people from a wellbeing and appreciation standpoint. That it's to their certain way

that they wanna feel appreciated. So thank you for that. I appreciate the time As Felipe shared, make sure

to connect with them via LinkedIn. He is always sharing amazing resources there, so you can follow him there.

I put the, put the link in the chat. Otherwise, thank you so much again, Felipe. Thank You.

Alright everyone, how about that? What were some of your key takeaways from that Impact accelerator?

I really appreciate these sessions because there we really get to break down different models and perspectives on the world of inclusion, belonging.

And just as a quick, like checkpoint before we move on, put in the chat, what were some of your biggest takeaways from these three speakers?

Like what were some of your biggest insights and things that you're excited to bring back to your team or your organization?

Put that in the chat right now and uh, as you do that, I'd love to get some thoughts quickly from my partner in crime here.

Uh, Clara, what, what about you? What were some of the things that stood out to you during these sessions?

Oh my goodness. So many things. I think just the overall understanding that resistance is part of the process.

Um, thinking of that as your starting point, not necessarily your end point. Um, but really just using that as your way to continue

to evolve over time. So I'm very grateful for all of these wonderful speakers. Love what I'm seeing in the chat.

I agree. I think that's such a, a great reminder too. And I think that's something in our own lives. Like so often when you're experiencing resistance

and tension within something that's actually not like a signal to back away in many ways. And in most cases it's a signal to kinda lean in, right?

Like, how often do we desire the ability to have more difficult conversations within our company so we can, I think as leaders in our ourselves,

how can we role model that and lean into those moments? So.

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