Christina Blacken on Uncovering the Unwritten Rules of Work and Using the Power of a Story to Transform Behavior and Build Inclusive Culture

Why is hierarchy how we recognize talent? Why is there a rigid idea of who is a "have" and who is a "have not"? Why do people need to look and talk a certain way to be a leader? How do the media and the narratives around us shape our biases and how we think and act? These are just some of the questions that Christina Blacken, founder of The New Quo and host of the Sway Them in Color podcast, challenged herself to answer.

Christina started in the non-profit world and then moved on to media. Once, her boss told her she should smile more. "How does that help me do my job better?" she asked. She then took an inventory of her values. Leveraging the help of a business coach, she took pen to paper to understand what problem she was passionate about solving and what solutions she could provide. When her FU fund reached her goal amount, she took the leap to make her side hustle her full-time job.

Today The New Quo is a leadership development and inclusion consultancy helping leaders create inclusive cultural and organizational change through narrative intelligence. So far, Christina has trained over 10,000 leaders across nine industries to self-reflect, examine their own biases, and transform their narratives, creating a ripple effect across the organization.

In this episode, Christina shares the mental framework she applied to every aspect of her journey and the narrative techniques she uses to disrupt bias today and build deeper connections and understanding between people who are different from each other. She shares how she counteracts the values gap and how you can work to take ideas evangelized on paper and turn them into action.