DEI – Embracing the Uncomfortable

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Understanding differences in people outside of our “tribe” – maybe outside of our comfort zone – can be, well, uncomfortable and difficult. Nicole Armstrong, founder/CEO of Queen City Certified shared her insights with me, how her team helps executives to guide them with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) challenges, as the nation’s first data-informed employer certification program.

2:06 – “how do we create systems that make it possible for all people to succeed…to allow somebody to know if a company really embraced the values of equity…and how to get there…”

4:00 – “a lot of these challenges are system-level challenges…that need system-level solutions…we’re talking about policies, we’re talking about practices…the challenge with training is that it puts the onus on the individual… which is important, but… most of these are unconscious…”

5:43 – “… we can conduct all the trainings we want, but if we’re not measuring who are we interviewing, who are we hiring, who’s being promoted, do we have targets…we have to be intentional about creating a workplace that embraces these (DEI outcomes) and builds that into every system in the organization.”

7:55 – “So much of the conversation has become polarized…when we talk with our leaders…these conversations can feel uncomfortable, and they’re supposed to feel uncomfortable…when we frame it as ‘resources and restrictions’ (instead of as ‘privilege’) then we can begin to have this conversation that we all have resources and restrictions, every single one of us.”

17:01 – “…if you can’t acknowledge and learn from your past…you’re doomed to repeat it. The challenge we’re hearing is that if we point it out, it will create more division…create a tension we don’t want… the fact is, there is already some division, some tension, and people have been living with the pain…whether we choose to acknowledge it, doesn’t change the pain. It’s there regardless, and it hurts everybody.”

If you’d like to learn, talk, and listen more, you can reach out to Nicole via email: [email protected].

Always growing.

Benno Duenkelsbuehler

CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN

[email protected]