The Podcast
Into the future with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (EP.67)
In conversation with Board Chair Renuka Kher and CEO Sara Fenske Bahat, we explore how uncertainty, transitions, and moving forward in ambiguity shows up in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Updated
December 22, 2022
In this episode, we’re exploring uncertainty, transitions, and moving forward in ambiguity – something most of us probably feel like we’re getting pretty used to having lived the past several years amid a global pandemic.
We’ll be exploring how these things show up in organizations, and in one organization in particular – San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. And we’ll discuss how they’re approaching this in their evolving work.
To learn more about their Head of External Relations search, visit: https://www.workshouldntsuck.co/ybca-er.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
SARA FENSKE BAHAT is a connector, most at-home when bridging the creative arts, economics, and equitable design to shape our social and political landscape. As Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) CEO, Sara works collaboratively with the YBCA team to advance the organization as a dynamic home for artists, arts and culture, and social justice movement building. Prior to becoming interim CEO, Sara served as YBCA’s Board Chair. Under her leadership, YBCA navigated COVID-19 pandemic challenges (which resulted in the longest mass closure of cultural venues since World War II), received support from leading innovators for groundbreaking work at the intersection of arts and movement building, and launched the nation’s first dedicated guaranteed income program for artists.
Most recently, Sara served as chair of the California College of the Arts (CCA) MBA in Design Strategy, a groundbreaking, multidisciplinary degree rooted in systems theory, foresight, and innovation.
Sara has a community finance and economic development background. Before becoming an educator, she worked for New York City’s economic development agency and in banking, where she championed local government support for community banks, improved banking and savings products for immigrant households, and multi-state consumer protection settlements.
Raised in a Milwaukee family steeped in advocacy for human, civil, and LGBTQ+ rights, Sara quickly developed a commitment to activism and social justice. A dedicated political fundraiser and mobilizer, she is passionate about driving civic engagement and hosted the Democratic National Committee’s first-ever Zoom fundraiser at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sara is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the London School of Economics. She is a 2022 Presidential Leadership Scholar, exploring the meaning of culture and cohesion in a country increasingly divided across wealth, ideology, and acknowledgment of historic and present inequity.
Sara lives in San Francisco and loves a good dance party.
RENUKA KHER has supported entrepreneurial efforts in under-resourced communities for her entire career. She has spent 16 years in various roles in philanthropy and managed and directed over $150M. Her professional experience spans the public, private, philanthropic and non-profit sectors. She has served on the board of and as an advisor to many of the nation’s leading social change organizations including, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Beyond 12, Year Up, Global Citizen Year and Revolution Foods.
Most recently, she served on the executive team of Tipping Point Community a nonprofit grant-making organization that fights poverty in the Bay Area. During her six year tenure at Tipping Point she helped lead the growth of the organization as its Chief Operating Officer and also founded T Lab, Tipping Point's R+D engine.
Before joining Tipping Point, Renuka served as a Principal at NewSchools Venture Fund whose work is focused on education and prior to that she was a Senior Program Officer at the Robin Hood Foundation where her work included developing and implementing a strategy for a $65 million relief fund, one of the nation's largest, created to respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Her work has been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, OZY, and Social Startup Success. Renuka received her bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Michigan, and completed her graduate work at Emory University, where she received a master's in public health from the Rollins School of Public Health. She is an alumnus of the Coro Leadership Program and also holds a certificate in Innovation Leadership from California College of the Arts. She currently lives in Oakland with her husband and two young children.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that. In this episode we're exploring, uncertainty, transitions and moving forward in ambiguity. Something I imagine most of us feel like we're getting pretty used to having lived the past several years amid a global pandemic. Maybe to put a finer point on the topic though, we'll be exploring how these things show up in organizations and in one organization in particular, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and we'll discuss how they're approaching this in their evolving work. For the conversation, I'm joined by YBCA's board chair Renuka Kher, and it's CEO, Sara Fenske Bahat. Both of their bios are linked in the episode description, so let's get going. Renuka and Sara, welcome to the podcast.
Renuka Kher:
Thanks, Tim, for having us.
Tim Cynova:
Why don't we get started with how you typically introduce yourselves and the work you do, and Renuka, would you like to get this thing rolling for us?
Renuka Kher:
So my name is Renuka Kher, and I am a South Asian woman. I have black hair. I am here in Oakland and I have a mural in the background that is my happy place, which is the mountains with the fogs in the midst, or the fog in the midst, I should say, and I am wearing a teal green shirt and a black vest today. I come from background in the nonprofit sector. I've spent over 17 years in philanthropy and been lucky enough to work on all of the issues that kind of cut across poverty alleviation, touch upon social justice, and the thing that makes me tick is all of the ways in which we can use all the tools in our toolbox to live well with one another and to contribute in ways that leave things better than we have found it.
Tim Cynova:
Sara, how about you?
Sara Fenske Bahat:
I am a white woman with blonde hair, glasses. I am sitting in front of a painting that has a woman holding an empty vessel and a bunch of checkerboard print on her dress. I'm wearing a very loud shirt next to that print, which is maroon with light blue and a bunch of ruching. There's a plant grounding the background and I'm sitting in light from my window. I introduce myself and my work as being grounded in community and it's typically been at the intersection of economics and policy. And so I began my career working in New York City government in the years post 9/11, I worked on the recovery of Lower Manhattan and saving jobs for New York. I then went to go work as a financial regulator. I've been a banker. I moved to San Francisco 15 years ago and decided I wanted to try to have some fun again. I found economics as sort of a typical first generation in my family, going to college, needing to study something that would pay off my student loans.
By the time I had done that, I was moving here and decided to go to design school, and so I added a layer of creative practice to the work that I had done. Ultimately, ending up teaching and then running the program that I had learned in. Apropos actually for this conversation, it's called the Design MBA, which we call the Masters in Business Ambiguity, actually. I joined the YBCA fold first as a fellow when I was teaching in that program, looking at economic wellbeing of families and how to talk about that creatively. I ended up joining the board, becoming the board chair, and then stepping into this seat over the last year as we've begun this transition. So I'd like to think of my practice as one that marries creative practice and a deep background in community work, specifically focused on economic wellbeing.
Tim Cynova:
Before we get to much more into the varying levels of ambiguity and uncertainty and transition, I want to spend a little bit of time on the two of you because you both have a close and supportive working relationship, and that's something that can't be said for every board chair and CEO. I'm curious, what do you attribute that to and what do you do to continue to invest in that working relationship?
Renuka Kher:
So Sara and I have known each other since 2004. We met in a public leadership program that was oriented around service called Coro. Over the years have just developed such a deep friendship and a deep admiration and respect for one another both personally and professionally. I think that that is really served as the foundation for us coming together to work with one another in this way. So I would say it's a really huge foundation of trust, but then also steeped in a couple values that we care a lot about, which is I think both of us are drawn to service and to think of ourselves as contributors, again, small contributors to kind of the big thing that we're all swimming in, whatever that might be at the moment, and also that we care a lot about our efficacy in terms of getting things right.
And I think this is important because she and I in our space with one another, whether it's public or private, what we aim to do is to be as authentic sort of behind the scenes as we are in any other space that we occupy, but also make sure that we are providing 100% kind of transparency and candor in what's happening. And so what's interesting is as I'm reflecting on just even the year of work that we've done in this context, it's really fluid the way in which we kind of can critique the work, we can offer feedback to one another. There really isn't even a mode that we go into. Sometimes relationships are structured, we're like, "Okay, let's give each other feedback." It's not like that. It's kind of whatever the day is presenting or whatever we're talking about, there's this really deep comfort in interrogating how we can be our best selves in service of the work and to make sure that we are holding ourselves to a pretty high standard and also the work as well.
Sara Fenske Bahat:
The only things that I want to add to this are that we didn't go into relationship in 2004 when we first met aspiring to do this kind of thing. We were both very grounded in being willing to tackle difficult questions and looking to build our toolboxes, and to Renuka's point, how effective we were in the work that we were doing, aspiring to leadership, aspiring to be of service, and I think what I would just offer is that when you've known someone for this length of time, literally decades almost at this point, you not only see the ways they show up as the world changes, as circumstance change, but personally as they grow, and from my point of view, when I think about us as women in our late twenties, I see a hunger in us and a desire to do work that's really aligned with what we think matters.
When I look at us now, I just see us continuing to grow in ourselves while doing the same. We started in Coro and then Renuka actually joined me in the design program that I just mentioned. I was like, "Hey, I think we need to go learn this thing over here," And then the same was true at YBCA like, "Hey, I think there's this really interesting thing going on over here. Can we do that thing together?" I would say we're not very outcome-oriented. In some ways I think we're discovery-oriented and collaborative and that shows up differently than I think some professional collaborations do in that I think we are very, very fortunate.
Tim Cynova:
In my own work, people ask me about what nonprofits or what arts organizations are doing really great people operations work and I often say I grew up in arts organizations, and so I'm looking outside of this sector for things that are examples that can be then maybe applied or retrofitted. Both of you are coming from outside, quote, unquote, the traditional art spaces and I'm wondering how that framing informs the way you work. Both if that is an accurate statement that you both consider yourself coming from outside the traditional art spaces, but how does that show up in the work that you're doing and inform the work that you're doing in ways that are helpful and then maybe ways that might be more challenging?
Sara Fenske Bahat:
For me, it's a question of whether you consider an MBA program at an art school an art space, and that is totally debatable. I don't think it falls into the category of other MBA programs and we're definitely the strangest thing that CCA did, California College of the Arts. I think of the missing piece, like the rolling Pac-Man trying to find his missing piece. The MBA program does not fit in necessarily to our school either. And so for me, I can't really speak to traditional art environments. That feels very true. Those feel inaccessible even to me. I have a whole set of judgments that I think about when I imagine what those might look like and I think some of the ways that shows up for me are the ways that the American Association of Museums talks about decolonizing collections and things like that.
When I think about the purpose of the work that we do at YBCA, I am here because our purpose feels like it's a community purpose sitting in a different place than just being a traditional arts organization. We don't collect, we are intentionally trying to share with this community a bounty of creative practice that really is about engagement. When I think about my practice over the last 20 or whatever years, having a grounding in community work I think is critical to the work that we do at YBCA. It gives me a much wider variety of tools to pull from, whether those be financial, whether those be design, whether those be collaborative. It's a different bias in terms of how we manage the work that we do here than one of a traditional institution, and I hope that that means in a similar way to I think an MBA program at an art school is really interesting, I hope that that becomes something here that offers an interesting lens and take on the ways that an arts organization can show up for a community.
Renuka Kher:
I've spent the majority of my career in philanthropy supporting social entrepreneurs who really are artists that are in service of change through using their creative practices and capital have created solutions to some of the most pressing challenges that we're faced with as a society, and in order for them to become efficacious, they've had to build organizations and scale organizations and be steeped in a few of the tools that Sara named, right? So you have to design your program, you have to make sure that you are proximate with the community that you seek to serve, that you have representation and lived experiences at all sort of levels in your organization and that you are able to measure your impact, you are able to tell your story, and you're able to raise incredible amounts of capital in order to ensure that the work is sustainable and outlives its genesis, if you will.
When I think of that spine, I think it absolutely marries or mirrors what YBCA is about in terms of our mission, our vision, and the community piece that Sara talked about, and it's in service of using art in all of its different forms to allow all of us, again, to kind of have an experience that leaves us potentially changed, but also has much wider impact in society.
Tim Cynova:
You both have worked in a lot of different places and with a lot of different people, and I'm thinking about this from the perspective of where we are right now in just history, where a lot of people have been questioning, "How do I want my life to be?" when it might not be the way it was in January 2020, where people are questioning their connection to work, their connection to place, their connection to meaning and purpose. I'm wondering for both of you, how do you answer that question for yourself and for people who might be like, "This isn't the work that I want to do. I want to be doing something else, maybe it's a different sector, maybe it's a different role."? What advice would you have for people who are wrestling with that question right now?
Sara Fenske Bahat:
That's a really big question. I mean, I spent the pandemic as an educator, the closed parts of the pandemic primarily as an educator, and so the existence I have at YBCA is very different, which is a public resource-type institution that's very much open. I've gone from having my whole life on Zoom in a classroom to being a part of an organization that's being looked to reconnect people in this community, which it's pretty drastic shift in terms of my experience. For me, my favorite job was definitely working for New York City post 9/11. That's counterintuitive for a lot of people. I think a lot of people view that to be really hard and sad and draining. For me, it was in hindsight, really formative to be able to see that I individually could work on something that allowed a community to recover and that I could find myself playing a positive role in a very difficult time in a way that aligned with my values and my skillsets.
To me, the work that we're doing here now is a real echo of that work. I see a lot of similarities. For those of you who might be listening and not know, San Francisco was closed, especially cultural institutions much longer than many parts of the country during COVID. As you might also know, there are a lot of layoffs going on in the tech community which changes the composition of the downtown neighborhood that we find ourselves in, and so we... Sure, we're an art center, we work with artists, we're always looking to represent what feels like the current set of questions that we are grappling with and we are doing so in a community that is also trying to figure out how people come together again. What does downtown look like? What are the hours of service where we find the most people coming into our spaces? And so we have a very local set of questions in addition to these more interesting, what is the role of an arts institution in a community set of questions.
To me, I love the opportunity to find yourself in a position where the work you are doing every day feels connected to the things you value. That's the holy grail. I think there's a lot of really good work to be done if we can find ourselves in that sort of alignment. My values reside in what is the contribution I can make in this community? Can I make it better? Can I make it more stable? And do I find enjoyment in that, which I do.
Renuka Kher:
And I don't know that I have advice that I can necessarily offer, but I can sort of share that pre-pandemic the place I was in my career. Again, fortunate just like Sara to have had a series of experiences where I was steeped in values alignment with doing work that actually mattered and knowing that it had lasting kind of contribution and impact. I also, ironically before Sara and I met, was also part of a relief fund in the post 9/11 recovery efforts.
And that's where I started my career in philanthropy and it was incredibly impactful, very community-centered, sort of intense in a very palpable way because you're in the middle of this incredible city that literally now has this physical gaping hole and everything that went into kind of making sense of that, figuring out what needs to happen in the short-term, what needs to happen in the long-term, and that all of us to this day have a story and a very palpable sense of something changed that day for us as a country, I would say even probably us as a world, and figuring out how to navigate your way through that situation and doing it in community and with other people, that wayfinding and sense making I think is an incredibly powerful thing if you can also have that actually integrated as part of your professional journey.
So in a lot of ways what Sara is saying about YBCA and the moment we find ourselves in and the mission that we have, again this very beautiful place and platform to explore, like what does healing look like for us, what does the way forward look like for us. Even this question, Tim, that you're asking, I don't know that I have a point of view right now. I just think it's interesting that before the pandemic I had made a decision to really lean into family life and had decided to stop working and in the middle of me asking myself this question of, "What would I like to do going forward? What does my next chapter look like?"
The pandemic was in the middle of that question for me. My son had just started kindergarten in the middle of the pandemic and when he started kindergarten I said, "Look, I'm going to try and figure out what my next steps are," and now the labor market and just how work is structured is completely being changed as we speak and things like flex time, whereas a mom, you would think about that and you'd have to figure out how to negotiate that and you'd have to be like, "Okay, will these people give me what I need?" It's not even a question anymore. It's very much so now normed that you can demand, that we should demand that and that these tools, things like Zoom and other things, that were held skeptically, working remotely, not coming into the office all of the time, having asynchronous work and synchronous work, I mean, all of this, even in the vernacular, these were not the things that I was conversing with my friends about as I was thinking, "Okay, how do I explore what I might do next?"
I was actually very much tethered to the old structures because that's how I've been conditioned to navigate, and so actually what I'm most excited about is to embrace the fact that some of these rules are no longer going to stick. I don't know what's going to happen or emerge in their place, but I have a lot of faith in the fact that there's so many more people in this conversation together and that there's so many more, both employers and employees, trying to navigate the way forward. And it's a very uncertain time, but at the same time a very promising time because I think some of the solutions we end up playing with and coming up with, I do believe will serve our wellbeing more effectively in the long run.
Sara Fenske Bahat:
There's something that Renuka's saying that I really appreciate having moved to the West Coast from California. It's almost like there's a couple adaptations in her storyline. One, moving to California from the East Coast, which we both did within a couple years of each other. In New York and I think in many other places, your life is your work and here your work is more of a portfolio of activities. I think of this as sort of being a place that's much more forgiving for people doing projects or project-based work. I think about films, I think about startups. California is a very different work environment. I remember moving here, my friends from New York were like, "Aren't you worried that you don't know what you're going to do yet?" And I'm like, "No, that is not the vibe that is happening here."
And I think there's this additional adaptation of the last couple of years of the modes of work, the modes of how you structure the different types of activities that you might have in your portfolio, and what I really like about what Renuka is saying is this additional layer of noticing a person's full life and experience, not just your work activities but really all of the parts of your day-to-day, month-to-month life that are meaningful for you and how they add up together, the flexibility around that. And there's a tone thing in there which feels like a reluctance to feeling things are daunting, like a resistance to feeling controlled, and maybe an openness to figuring it out, an openness to feeling supported as you figure it out that I really just want to underscore. Those are not conversations we were having 20 years ago when we started on this journey together. Those are conversations that have matured in the course of our work lifetimes, if you will.
Tim Cynova:
Also as someone who lived in New York for quite a while, one of the very first times I went to California someone asked me what I did for recreation as a way of introduction, and it was like that moment where, "Oh, my God. I know I do stuff, but what do I answer for this question?" Because usually in New York he's like, "Yeah, what do you do?" Meaning what do you do for work, and that recreation really threw me for a loop where I'm like, "I do things. I'm sure I do things. I own a bike. I'll say I have a bike." That probably was 20 years ago, and to your point, people are talking about work and life in different ways now, especially, Renuka, to your point, some of the things that seemed very rare have been baked into the way a number of people are able to work.
And there's that site where you can track words as they show up in literature and I imagine you'd see a massive spike if you search for asynchronous over the past three years because how many times do we talk about asynchronous work before the pandemic? I'm curious, you both have touched on this a little bit, but thinking more specifically to the work at YBCA that you do in this place that has a physical location, a mandate that's baked into the charter to do work that's located in space, having come through the pandemic when you mentioned that San Francisco was closed for cultural institutions for the most part, and this past year in particular as San Francisco, the world has started to open up, things have been presented in maybe new but also familiar ways. What's that been like for both of you and for the organization?
Sara Fenske Bahat:
YBCA is a really interesting case of... I think of the work we did before the pandemic as being grounded in our building, in our physical presence, and really being a special place where I witnessed and felt like I was a part of many different types of people and communities coming together. That's why I kept coming back. To me, it was the most interesting room of people I could find in this town. And then during the pandemic we learned how to do all these other things that did not require a physical presence, and when I look at those things now, I think about the ways we sort of built the depth of our practice. We built digital tools to connect artists to opportunities, we ran a guaranteed income pilot, we distributed grant money from the state. We did much deeper work than just what shows up in the building because what shows up in the building can be different day-to-day, depends on who's here, depending what's on the walls, who's on the stage.
This other what I think of as more ecosystem-level work, it's invisible in terms of showing up in the building, but it's not invisible about what is showing up in terms of goodwill in our community and the ways in which we're taken seriously by the creative community in particular. So for me, the last year of reopening has been really about how do we find the best parts of our practice when we are open and in what is invisible. And truly, I mean, we have a team that's also very different than before the pandemic because we've added all of these areas. How do we create a culture that allows for both, both the important work that goes on in the building that is visible and the work that is less visible to perhaps visitors coming from the convention center across the street, and how do we balance the resources of an institution and the storytelling around how we make our choices to reflect that combined practice?
It's been a lot, but I can't think that it ever is going to hurt us to have done work that is valuable to the artists in this community, that broadened our practice and the depth of our practice. And so I would say it's still a work in progress. Like many organizations, we are thinking about technology and the use to make us more efficient. We are talking about the ways we invest in our team and composition of our team, but fundamentally, I feel very good about the things that this organization decided to resource during the pandemic and how they then can come together with a reopened environment.
Renuka Kher:
This period has really positioned us to be in a both and moment. In a lot of ways, the same answer to the question that you asked about just making sense of work and how you navigate that, in the same vein now as an organization are trying to reconcile the bets that we made during the pandemic, reconcile that with our deep purpose and mission and who we're obligated to serve and try and figure out, just like a lot of arts and culture organizations, the brass tacks of it is how to keep the lights on and how to keep the doors open and how to make sure that we are a place that more and more people are gravitating towards at a time when people are sort of limited in what they're choosing to do.
We're open, and I say the world, we're open, but now we're also dealing with the fact that people are very selective because of the pandemic in terms of what they do at their time, where they go, who they interact with, and at the same time we have this tremendous opportunity, again, to be a cultural resource for the entire community as they're making sense of what has gone on for the past few years and trying to figure out where do they want to spend time that really gives them a rich, deep experience and one that we obviously have really started to pride ourselves on, which is that's one that's participatory, that you come through the doors of YBCA and there's something different that happens in your experience because you become a part of it. And for us to sustain those kinds of experiences for the future is both an incredibly exciting question for us to wrestle with and an opportunity for our community to sort of solidify that that is how people identify with YBCA.
Sara Fenske Bahat:
And just very practically, I mean, I think of it as I go to some institutions to go see a show, I want to go see something specific, whether it's theater, whether it's dance, whether it's art on the walls if you will, but I'm very purpose-driven in why I might go to see something. I have to book a ticket in advance, I have to think about it. I go on a whole journey to arrange to be there for a thing. I think about YBCA very differently actually in where I hope we get, and I hope that we get to a point where you can know that you reliably show up at YBCA whenever and something really interesting is going to be going on.
You don't actually have to plan or arrange as meticulously as you might to go to some other things. You can just know that there's going to be cool stuff happening here that's going to change the way you look at the world, the community, your role in it, et cetera, and I'll feel successful when we have arranged to get to that place, where that same feeling of showing up in a room and feeling like the most exciting people in town, we're all here together, can be something that happens without a lot of prearrangement. You don't have to necessarily jump through all the hoops, you can just roll in off the street and something here will be on offer, and ideally, something that feels engaging for you to Renuka's point.
Tim Cynova:
We talked about regional difference in how people might think about life and work. I'm curious more specifically about arts organizations or nonprofits maybe more in general. Do you notice any differences in how arts organizations and maybe nonprofits approach the work that they do in the Bay Area than maybe, say, New York City or from the Midwest where we all find some of our roots as well?
Renuka Kher:
I think with the Bay Area, what I'll say is first of all that the amount of capital required to operate in this ecosystem is just has to be underscored. The sheer real estate that we occupy, the city blocks that we are located amongst in San Francisco, it's a very well-trafficked area, and so just to situate ourselves in the physical and kind of economic context. Beyond that, I would say that one of the things in the Bay that I've appreciated so much and that has been very opening for me and I think a lot of other people in the social entrepreneurship space is this appetite for risk-taking and that it's very much baked into the kind of Silicon Valley innovation spine, if you will, that has again, sort of pluses and minuses just like everything else.
But I do think that in general, the propensity for people having an appetite for trying things differently, for consuming things differently, for interacting in different ways, it's very much so laid into the cultural fabric and ethos of this region, and I think that that again strengthens our position as a cultural institution because it allows us to also ensure that we are giving ourselves the maximum permission within that same context and frame to do things differently, to try new things, to support artists in different ways, which feels really true to what we've done during the pandemic and what we hope to invest in to align ourselves and position ourselves for the future.
Sara Fenske Bahat:
This is a different type of ecosystem in terms of who joins boards, how much people meet about what's going on in town. New York, when I look at what those years looked like for me, there was an endless stream of cranes, New York breakfasts, benefits with people who were on one board honoring somebody on another board. There's this heavily regimented institutional showing up thing that happens in terms of business leadership, nonprofit leadership, civic leadership. It's like every day of the week you could go do stuff like that. And this town is a little bit less like that. You have to work a little harder to find your alliances, to find common ground with people.
I don't think you can make the same set of assumptions about everyone's intentions to show up civically. I mean, Renuka's point is so right on in terms of rejecting convention, willingness to try new things, et cetera. Part of what we don't have, because we are that place, is this through line of participation, and so a lot of what we have to do on our own individually as institutions is develop those networks of participation, which I think some places can take for granted as institutions that are sort of passed generation to generation.
Tim Cynova:
Well, in the spirit of trying new things, trying different things, right now YBCA is in the process of hiring for a brand-new role, head of external relations, and I'll offer full disclosure here, I know this because YBCA has contracted Work Shouldn't Suck to be involved in a really exciting value centering process. The organization has had leadership roles focused on fundraising and focused on marketing and communication spaces in the past, but combining them into this head of external relations role is a new approach for YBCA. So I'm wondering why create this role and what opportunities does this new role signal for YBCA?
Sara Fenske Bahat:
I'm excited about this search because what I see is the opportunity to really combine our storytelling and cultivation efforts. We have incredible stories to tell about the impact that this organization has had, not only on the lives of individual artists, but on this community. Great example: We currently have a show that features Brett Cook. Brett is a local artist. He also calls himself an educator and a healer. This is a culminating show that includes decades of his work. He's in this show with Liz Lerman, who is also showcasing decades of her work. Brett first showed his work at YBCA when it was under construction. He spray painted the outside perimeter of the building. There are pieces of that work here in this show.
When I think about the impact that YBCA, we turn 30 next year, has had on this community and the lives of individual artists, I'm not sure that we're telling that story or inviting people to be a part of it as effectively as we might, and so this role really is front and center in connecting those dots so that the public, artists that we work with and funders are all getting the benefit of the same story in terms of the impact that this organization has. And to me that's super exciting. It's like you hear about these donor tables where they separate out the people funding the work and the people receiving the funds. We're pulling it all together. We want to tell really, really strong stories about our work and equip somebody in this role to do so really consistently across the audiences that we serve so that our funders are really invited into the full story and really called to the table of the work that we're doing as a community institution.
And so for me, this is a boundary lowering role with a really delicious challenge of how to portray the work that we're doing in a city that I think would benefit from a little TLC and a little love in terms of the ways in which we can come together and the benefit that that can have for this community, and if I might, the ways in which San Franciscans in particular view that work in the context of a country. It is very much the case here that we are proud of our COVID response. It is very much the case here that we are proud of the former mayor, now governor, putting gay marriage into place. There is a thing about this town that is willing to lean in and be really progressive as a beacon for other places. And so to me, this role is a huge opportunity for the right person to do that with us.
Renuka Kher:
What this signals really for us as an institution is that we are integrating and sort of removing silos the way that we've sort of worked in the past and trying to really allow this person to assume that leadership mantle and become kind of a very strong voice inward and outward, I would say. And just as Sara said, there is a treasure trove of stories to share about YBCA's impact over the past 30 years, so it's just such an incredibly ripe moment for us to have somebody who comes in and really does what Sara and I have talked about. This is really foundational work for YBCA's next decade.
It's not even about just a short period of time, but it's sort of you get to have the opportunity to look back on 30 years of incredible work and weave that together to then form the foundation for what happens for the next decade and how YBCA is now sort of perceived and received externally, which we have not been in the position to do over the past few years because we've been responding to the pandemic, before the pandemic we were talking about and trying to position ourselves to try some new things, try things differently. And again, this moment is really for this person to help us synthesize a lot of what's happened, make sense of it, and showcase truly from one voice, one story for all of us to then be ambassadors of. So it's really groundbreaking and defining work for us.
Sara Fenske Bahat:
To me, the gauntlet to throw down is this job is made for somebody who wants to explore this delicious question of what is the role of an art center in a community, what is the fullest potential of a center-like YBCA in a community, in a community that is fractured in some ways, is progressive in other ways, in a country where the same is the case? We are a model for a lot of things. We are relied upon to experiment. So what is the full extent of that experimentation as it applies to our storytelling efforts and the ways in which that shows up in the engagement, in cohesion and exposure of a community.
Tim Cynova:
So recently, YBCA began in earnest it's work to understand how racism and oppression are woven into the DNA of the organization, and it's a frequent topic on the Work Shouldn't Suck podcast where we discuss how this shows up in systems, structures, policies, practices, programs, and workplaces, who's included, who's not, how do we shift power differentials and with this knowledge, how do we co-create workplaces where everyone can thrive. I'd love for both of you to share a bit about why YBCA has begun engaging in this learning and work and why this commitment to anti-racism is critical to it achieving its mission.
Sara Fenske Bahat:
I think one of the observations of having been closed and specifically having started guaranteed income work is that we've learned in some ways that are insides don't match our outside ambitions. We say that we're doing work in community and the ways that we've designed that work has not always been satisfactory to the communities that we're working with, if I'm going to be really honest. We have a big accountability statement on our website that can elaborate on that if you're interested, but I think that there's an observation born out of a lot of that for me and also just born out of switching from the board chair role to the internal role where I have a lot more information that we have a real ambition to show up in a way that does feel anti-racist and anti-oppression, and we do not have the systems to support that, and so we need to do this work internally ourselves in order to show up the way that we aspire to for ourselves, but also for our community, and until we do, we will keep finding things that don't work for us or for others.
And so really for our staff, for ourselves, for our partners, for the artists we work with, I have a strong opinion that we need to look in the mirror and make sure that the ways in which we're turning up every day honor the experiences of our team, of our partners, of the artists that we work with and we have work to do. I made a reference earlier to just using technology, to pick a simple example, and I would offer we're an arts organization that hasn't embraced systems or process.
And at first coming into this role, I found that really frustrating, it was hard to understand how things worked, if you will. I've now come around to the point of view that we can build systems that are equitable from the jump if we take this work very seriously, and to me, that's doing it right. To begin to peel that onion to know what systems we need to build we have to start asking ourselves the questions, and so for me, for this team to be successful, for this organization to be successful, that work starts from within each of us, each team and the whole organization and the ways in which we work.
Renuka Kher:
From the board's perspective, plus one to everything Sara said, and that we from a governance perspective, have a fiduciary responsibility, and I think that this is what I hope we can add value around in sort of the arts ecosystem is that boards start to hold themselves accountable to ensuring that systems and policies and procedures are continually assessed on an annual basis so that what we are offering, whatever we design, whatever the sort of internal examination is of making sure that we have equitable practices. So there's a phase of the work of understanding where we are, where we need to improve, and then once we're on that journey that we really want to make sure in order for this to have staying power, it's independent of any leadership team and independent of the board composition because it is baked into the set of responsibilities that on an annual basis, for example, we are examining pay parity and we are talking and in conversation with the management team about those kinds of policies and procedures at a systemic level so that no one individual has to endure or bear the brunt of a systemic issue.
And teasing that apart is the work that we're in right now, and calling the board into showing up for making sure that we have an eye on the systemic structure is how we hope to make it a practice that outlives any one of us and that allows any individual walking into YBCA, whether you're a new employee or a longtime employee, knowing that those systemic factors are taken care of and are addressed on an annual basis. Because as we all know, this work is dynamic and ongoing, and so there's first kind of taking that slice of what can we design intentionally, equitably, and then there's the maintenance of that and ensuring that any one individual does not have to navigate that on their own.
Tim Cynova:
No surprise here, our time has flown by. As we bring the conversation in for a landing today, where do you want to land it?
Sara Fenske Bahat:
I mean, Tim, I want to thank you. You've been such a huge part of our time here and I think it's important in these moments of challenge to find optimism. I don't know that any of us have gotten through our hardest moments without it. One of the things that I find a lot of optimism around is that I think our community wants us to succeed. I feel great that I have a partner like Renuka in the work that we're doing here. I feel really great about a team that's motivated by the work that we're doing, and if anything, I think we're just looking to recruit to the team. And if this kind of work, whether you're on the receiving end or the construction end, is appealing, I mean, join the party. There's plenty of room in this tent. God knows we have enough work to do. Please follow YBCA. We are grateful for all of the engagement.
Renuka Kher:
I would echo everything Sara said and just truly underscore the exciting moment that we're in. We are in a building moment, a build and design, and so it's really kind of a really beautiful opportunity for somebody, anybody actually, to join our team and to help us design things in a way that, again, you will look back 10 years from now and say, "Wow. I was a part of making that happen. I was a part of laying some of the groundwork for this to continually be a way in which YBCA continues to manifest itself," and I really can't think of a better opportunity to do that while also being fed truly by being able to interrogate and to excavate the best parts of our impact over the last 30 years as we turn 30.
It's just, I love reflection and introspection and what that offers and especially amidst a challenging time because it really is grounding, and that is where so much of the hope and optimism lives is in the art and in the impact, and this is an opportunity for somebody to come in, hit the ground running, really shape things, really become a voice for us as an institution, and allow all of us to show up as incredible ambassadors as a result.
Tim Cynova:
So awesome. Renuka, Sara, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives, for your vulnerability, for your openness, for your genuineness, and thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Renuka Kher:
Thank you, Tim, for having us.
Tim Cynova:
To learn more about Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, visit them online at YBCA.org or on the socials, @YBCA. If you or someone might be interested in applying for their new head of external relations role, find out more about the opportunity, including staff videos talking about why this role is an important addition to the YBCA team over on workshouldntsuck.co/ybca-er. If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up, or five stars, or a phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep13: Conversation with a Peer Support Circle (EP.66)
In this special bonus episode of "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim talks with Noah Becker, Kevin Eppler, Colin Lacey, and Shannon Mudd, four members of a peer support circle that's part of the larger racial affinity group White Men for Racial Justice (WMRJ). This group of guys meet regularly to support, challenge, and hold each other accountable as they seek to live into their values and desire to help co-create an anti-racist, equitable, and just world.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
September 13, 2022
In this special bonus episode of "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim talks with Noah Becker, Kevin Eppler, Colin Lacey, and Shannon Mudd, four members of a peer support circle that's part of the larger racial affinity group White Men for Racial Justice (WMRJ). This group of guys meet regularly to support, challenge, and hold each other accountable as they seek to live into their values and desire to help co-create an anti-racist, equitable, and just world.
After nearly two years of meeting weekly on Zoom, they finally had the opportunity to meet in 3D in Richmond, Virginia for a weekend of immersive learning and community building with 40 other members of WMRJ. This discussion occurs the week after that gathering.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore resources mentioned in and related to this episode?
"Sassy Mouths, Unfettered Spirits, and the Neo-Lynching of Korryn Gaines and Sandra Bland: Conceptualizing Post Traumatic Slave Master Syndrome and the Familiar “Policing” of Black Women’s Resistance in Twenty-First-Century America" by Dr. Zoe Spencer and Olivia N. Perlow
Hidden in Plain Site is a VR exploration of distinct, but easy to overlook sites around Richmond, VA - including the Richmond Slave Trail mentioned during this episode - that tells the story of the Black experience throughout history. Featuring actual examples from various angles and ages, these sites will be brought to impactful life through current appearance augmented with historical imagery.
America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis
"A Stain on An All-American Brand: How Brooks Brothers Once Clothed Slaves" by Dr. Jonathan Michael Square
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
NOAH BECKER With more than 20 years of experience in the corporate financial and public accounting sectors, Noah is responsible for financial reporting and oversight of all administrative financial matters at LLR. During his career, Noah has helped several companies establish the financial and operational tools to facilitate growth and expansion. He has held senior financial positions at early stage as well as established entities such as ICG Commerce, Five Below and The Franklin Mint. Prior to joining LLR, he served as CFO of Finite Carbon. Previously, he spent eight years in public accounting at Arthur Andersen, most recently as a Senior Manager.
KEVIN EPPLER (he/him), MTS, is a curriculum designer, facilitator, and content creator with Jubilee Partners (Jubilee Justice and Jubilee Gift). Kevin recently became a certified Program Leader with the Groundwater Institute. He is also a Learning Partner at The Opt-In. Prior to his work with Jubilee, Groundwater, and The Opt-In, Kevin spent 20 years in education, as a classroom teacher, dean, department chair, and varsity coach. He has designed and taught courses that examine race, justice, social business, social movements, and religion in both university and secondary school settings. Since 2013, Kevin has been dedicated to designing antiracism curriculum, leading antiracist caucus spaces, and JEDI/ABAR (Anti-bias, antiracism) consulting, after having committed himself to his own learning/unlearning as well as building his racial and cultural competence. Kevin believes he and other white men particularly have an important role to play in dismantling systems of oppression that begins with transformational learning and intentional inner work. Kevin has co-designed and founded a number of white, antiracist, caucus spaces including WMRJ (White Men for Racial Justice) and AWARE, both which were designed to call white folk into community and accountability, to develop our racial awareness, our stamina, literacy, and communication skills, as well as to commit to dismantling racism in ourselves and our spheres of influence. He has helped develop antiracism curriculum and programs in high schools, church communities, non-profit organizations, and for profit businesses. Kevin particularly enjoys designing and leading intensive justice and equity based immersion experiences and has done for both secondary schools and adult communities.
COLIN LACEY, Chief Product Officer at a Machine Learning technology startup, has a passion for bringing great products and services to market and has done so in IT, clean energy and software domains. From growing up in Ireland, to working in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, he liked to think that he had a pretty good handle on the state of the world but that was completely dispelled following Charlottesville, and the death of George Floyd, driving him to reassess his perspectives on life and race in America. He lives in Austin, TX with his Afro-Latina wife, their two dogs, and (occasionally) their two college-aged kids.
SHANNON MUDD is an economist who has worked both in and out of academics and has previously lived in Slovakia, Russia and the UK. He currently is in the department of economics and director of Haverford MI3, the Microfinance and Impact Investing Initiative at Haverford College. Mi3 is a member of Investors’ Circle (SVC) and its national network of impact investors and Shannon is an active participant in the Philadelphia Chapter. He and his students manage a small impact investing portfolio of equity investment in early stage social enterprises in partnership with a foundation in HK. He has been living in Phoenixville, PA for 18 years where he and his wife raised two terrific kids and where they are now happily empty nesters. He enjoys cycling, gardening, reading, cooking, training in martial arts, playing guitar and is active in his church leading small group studies and participating in worship music. He participates in POWER Interfaith, an organizing group of largely faith-based congregations actively working toward racial justice, social justice and environmental justice in Pennsylvania.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Kevin Eppler:
It was really powerful. It speaks to this reality that I believe it was Jim Wallace in the book, America's Original Sin points out that 75% of white Americans do not have an authentic relationship with a Black, Indigenous, or other person of color, 75%. Not like, "Oh yeah, we're colleagues at work and we talk and we're associates that way." But have you been to each other's house? Have you been to the barbecue? Have you been to the birthday party? Have you gone to church together? And do you hang out in other spaces other than your work environment? Whatever. That's the question. And by that criteria, 75% of white Americans say no.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work shouldn't Suck a podcast about well that. On today's episode, white Guys, anti-racism and mutual support and accountability. I'm joined in this conversation by four amazing guys, Colin Lacey, Kevin Eppler, Noah Becker and Shannon Mudd. Together we form a five person Avengers team of sorts. The five of us are members of a pure support circle, as part of the larger racial equity affinity group called White Men for Racial Justice, or WMRJ for short. As we'll unpack over the course of this conversation, our group of guys meets regularly to support, challenge and hold each other accountable as we seek to live into our values and desire to help co-create an anti-racist, equitable, and just world.
WMRJ has been mentioned a number of times in recent episodes as I've had one on one conversations with several of our WMRJ colleagues for the mini series White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-racism. After nearly two years meeting weekly on Zoom, I had the pleasure of finally meeting these guys for the first time in 3D, as we gathered with nearly 40 other white men in Richmond, Virginia for a weekend of immersive learning and community building. I'm so excited to be in community and conversation with these guys today. So let's get going. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast.
Kevin Eppler:
Thanks for having me Tim.
Colin Lacey:
Thank you.
Tim Cynova:
recording this at the end of June 2022, amid some significant airline scheduling challenges and those challenges resulted in the cancellation of Colin's flights. That meant while he was with us in spirit, he was unable to join us in 3D in Richmond. So part of this conversation is having an opportunity for our group to actually all connect in, unpack with Colin the events of this past weekend. Maybe to get things started, to give listers a sense for who's in the room. Let's go around and answer how do we typically introduce ourselves in the work we do? And maybe let's go an alphabetical order. So Colin, you want to get started?
Colin Lacey:
Sure. Hi guys, this is Colin Lacey. I'm originally from Ireland, but have been living in the US for 25 plus years. In my day job, I work in product management and marketing and I'm excited to be part of this peer support circle, a really fantastic community for us to gather our thoughts and review the work that we've been doing within our racial community.
Kevin Eppler:
And I'm Kevin Eppler. My pronouns are he and him. I think I would describe the work I do as a community organizer. I'm a content developer, learning partner and program leader for a variety of organizations that are dedicated to racial equity. I'm also a co-founder and steward of WMRJ.
Tim Cynova:
Cool. And we'll dig into that in just a little bit. Noah, you're the CFO of the private equity firm. What else do you want to share by way of introduction?
Noah Becker:
Noah Becker, been part of this group for a couple years and really enjoyed this peer group and the support circle, which has been really a good way of connecting. It's a small group of four or five people meeting every few weeks, in context of a larger group of 40 to 50 meeting every few weeks. So it's a really intimate way of getting the discussion and moving things forward.
Tim Cynova:
And Shannon, bring us home with the intros.
Shannon Mudd:
Hi, my name is Shannon Mudd. I'm an economist. I teach economics at a small liberal arts college that has Quaker roots and a long history of emphasis on social justice. I actually grew up with parents in a church whose members were also very focused on social justice and mission from the civil rights to mental health issues to teen pregnancies and human sexuality, to even the hospice movement.
Tim Cynova:
Shannon, before we dive a bit more into the Richmond weekend and what happened, I wonder if you might want to share a bit about why you got involved with White Men for Racial Justice and what value you find in being a part of a peer support circle.
Shannon Mudd:
What's the value being part of a peer support circle? So basically being able to share some struggles I've encountered in some different spaces as well as share the range of thoughts and emotions that arise with the pretty challenging material we are reading. It's been just a boon and a blessing. And when I say share thoughts and emotions, I mean all the emotions, which is not always allowed in other spaces. It's also been great to have a space just to process things out loud. And these guys have been a huge help for me moving toward really thinking more strategically about situations I have found myself in. Basically now I have a community of good people who are also struggling with various situations and I've come to find they often have some pretty hard earned wisdom to share, often born of failure, which is a pretty good teacher.
I should say that while these conversations mostly happen in our small groups and breakout rooms in the larger group meetings, the way such conversations and personal revolutions are supported in the larger group is part of what makes it possible. I came to White Men for Racial Justice for a deeper dive into anti-racism issues. I had participated in some readings both in a faculty reading group and a small group study at church. But more than that, I was primed by my relationship with my son's best friend in high school. He is Black and we engaged in some difficult and challenging conversations during college breaks when my son was home in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor and too many others, I realized I was more worried about Bruce and what might happen to him in the outside world than I was ever worried about my own son.
I knew that was just wrong. It pointed to some real issues and serious problems in our society. And I was also prime because I had become aware of what institutional racism might mean in a very practical sense. It had to do with the distribution of our state's educational funding. Now basically where our state had recently instituted a formula that would help correct inequities. It had done so with a hold harmless clause, meaning it would only be applied to newly allocated educational funds. While I understand the sort of the political expediency of a program that meant no district would have its state funds reduced, the existing funding was biased toward the wealthiest school districts and toward the whitest school districts. So while this new formula would eventually lead to less inequities, it was first going to lock in the current inequities for several more generations of students. And that was sort of the first understanding I had of what was meant by systemic racism. And I wanted to see what could be done about it.
Tim Cynova:
So Kevin, you mentioned being one of the stewards. You're one of the community stewards for WMRJ and specifically help design WMRJ in Richmond weekend. Can you sketch out for the listers the purpose of that weekend and how the activities unfolded?
Kevin Eppler:
I will certainly give it my best shot. It was simply the recognition that we learned best in community and in proximity to one another and to the communities in with which we want to be greater connected and to the work that we do as White Men for Racial Justice. I've many times in my life have participated in incredible immersion experiences and know the value. As a trained educator, I spent 20 years in education of experiential learning and we knew that we already have a pretty tight knit, well bonded, well glued community, but we knew that coming to Richmond for an in person immersion experience would only strengthen those bonds.
And we knew that we could do things in person that we simply aren't able to do in the two dimensional world of virtual platforms and Zoom screens and things like that. So I think that drawing on some experiences that others in the community and I have had in person, including a previous retreat of other folks of a multiracial multigender community of practice, confronting issues of race, equity, justice and truth telling, including an experience that several of us had four years ago, we knew that these weekends are essential. They add tremendous depth to the work that we do in community.
And so I wanted to speak for my own personal experience. I wanted to witness and to create the opportunity for others to experience what I had experienced and knew that I would also get much out of it doing it with this community particularly, who over the last two years I've grown so much tighter, so much more connected to and whom as I spoke to during on the weekend, feel a great deal of responsibility and kinship with. So I hope that speaks a little bit into that question. Yeah, so thank you.
Tim Cynova:
One of the things that was interesting was there weren't a lot of details about the Richmond weekend before we actually got to the Richmond weekend. So everyone said yes to this thing without really knowing what was going to happen. We were all together like, "All right, let's get to Richmond." Why did you say yes to this experience?
Kevin Eppler:
Yeah, I want to know that too. Why did you say yes? Because we purposely didn't send out a whole lot, you're absolutely right Tim.
Colin Lacey:
I was certainly sure that I was thinking about this and thinking about what were my expectations coming into the weekend before I couldn't make it and realizing that I really had no idea what was going to happen there. But I was still so excited to A, just be in community with this group of people that we've had such a phenomenal experience with over the past two years virtually. And with the equity advisors kind of being in the same space as them, just getting the opportunity to have that personal connection during the weekend is really what I was looking forward to. Any additional learning development, whatever it was, was going to be icing on the cake.
Noah Becker:
It's a group that we've been meeting on Zooms or other things for two years, and every once in a while, maybe like three or four of us from the peer group met physically once. And I'm sure Kevin and some of the other stewards and folks have been together a lot more. But for us, there's a bunch of people I've seen in two dimensions for two years and actually get to meet them, hang out, have a drink with, break bread with and that's a totally different experience. Is sort of we've been in this long enough and kind of rely on the organizers that there hasn't been a topic yet for, I think, even really any single meeting where it was like, "Well that was not a good use of my time." So if they've delivered for two years, I think it was pretty comfortable to say that it was going to be an enjoyable weekend and educational.
Shannon Mudd:
It was interesting because basically I decided to go because I just have developed a great sense of trust in the leadership team over basically two years that we've been meeting. Every session has included some pretty thought provoking materials and some challenging reflection prompts to chew on. It's been just incredibly helpful to have a group of people who are also trying to figure out what to do with these things, to hash out thoughts, think out loud and to be held accountable. The break out groups really lend themselves to this.
So I figured the retreat would be just that, a retreat. Some time away, away from distractions and not just an hour and a half, but a serious swath of time set aside to really sit with some material, to sit with myself and my own thoughts and history, and to sit with others also trying to navigate through this issue. And ultimately, think how to bring these issues into the other spaces we inhabit.
Kevin Eppler:
Tim, if I can, I want to build on what was said. Which was one, they nailed it, which was the purpose of coming to Richmond was to strengthen the bonds in the community. No question. Full stop with what it meant to be simply together in that space. The second reason we went to Richmond was because it's the home of our pair of equity advisors and therefore, we had connection and community essentially awaiting us there. And we knew that they had opportunities for us to engage, to manifest the work to what they say, get off the porch in Richmond, why we were there for that weekend. So that was reason number two.
And number three is because of the historic significance of Richmond. As the capital of the Confederacy at one time, one of the largest ports of the trafficking of enslaved human beings historically. And also home to Jackson Ward, one of the thriving Black Wall Streets in America and incredible modern day, current day creativity, justice work, communities of practice that are on the ground in Richmond with which we were hoping to connect and engage in some incredible work that's being done there for healing and racial justice. So those are the three real, if you will, somewhat polished motivations or reasons for being in Richmond.
Tim Cynova:
Colin, I'll tell you, it was surreal to the last hug seeing people in 3D that, I mean, it kind of felt like, let me hold up a Zoom square in front of everyone because you're like, "Oh, that's... Mark Mannella is much taller than I thought he was." Like you keep turning around, you'd be like, "People in 3D is kind of surreal." Kevin and I were leaving like... I mean, it's like how do we hold on to that? But it just added such a strange and beautiful dimension after years of not really being in a space together. And certainly for myself, I've not been in a space discussing this topic, wrestling with this topic for three years in 3D. So it was really special to come together with all the people and be like, "Oh god, you're like these real people here."
And then as we mentioned, I sent you that photo, there was an art exhibit in the main hallway that we walked down every single day to go into the main room, and right by the door was Colin's. So we're able to reflect on your reflections of your whiteness being a white guy. So there was that special connection that sort of knitted us together, even though we were states apart. So really, really special and also sort of really surreal.
Colin, I'm curious what questions you have, having had so little information going into say yes. Sadly, you weren't able to be with us in person. What's on your mind as we think about this weekend and what happened? And then how do we reconnect the group? As we've had some people who were in Richmond, some people who were unable to be with us but we're continuing the work two nights ago, and this continues to be something that we do every Tuesday night.
Colin Lacey:
For me, I guess one of the questions I had, absolutely, and one of the things I feel like I just viscerally missed out on as I'm fortunate enough to have met Kevin, Shannon, Noah, in person at least, was to be in shared space with Taylor and Zoe, our equity advisors. And so that's one of the things I wanted to kind of ask the group here was how did it feel to be there with them in person and how did that change your experience?
Noah Becker:
To me, it was just first, the same thing we've been talking about, it's people you've seen on a screen for years but haven't actually met in person. And just seeing somebody live, it's a lot different getting that connection and being in the same room and really hearing their voice unadulterated by your slow internet or any other connection issue, and just being able to catch up, say hello, shake hands, give a hug. It makes you feel a lot closer and more together and I think that will help just something that carries on long run.
Tim Cynova:
There was a lot of variety in our three days together. I mean there is deep reflection in journaling and lecture, if you will, but not really lecture in the way you think. And then a basketball championship and then a group dinner at a Mexican restaurant and the Richmond Slave Trail and all these different things sort of wove together. And we had an opportunity to be in different spaces with each other and connect. So it wasn't just what typically happens on a Tuesday night where we meet on Zoom, we've read some materials, we've watched some things, we talk in sort of breakout groups come back together, or if it's a fireside chat when our equity advisors sort of talk about what's on their mind, what's pressing in their community, how we can get off the porch. But having those moments to just have those side conversations and I also haven't been at a basketball game for three years, so it was kind of this surreal moment as well. Which really made me think about what's the thing that you can't replicate in racial equity work online? What really has to be done in person?
And there were some moments that there's no way you can do that thing online because it's like unscripted, unplanned, unexpected, and it just sort of happens. And it, for me, just took the work so much deeper in a way that I can read things, I can watch, I can discuss, but being there on the Richmond Slave Trail, being there, smelling things. Kevin, I had in my pocket my phone on the up river portion of the Slave Trail and I had a recording because I wanted to record the sounds of these 40 guys walking the Slave Trail. And I was walking right behind Kevin and Kevin had a metal water bottle that had ice in it, and it sort of was rattling in a way that we had just passed this sign that showed the enslaved people in shackles. And there was this sound like that was rattling and then Jay was coughing and then there's just birds chirping.
And there's this juxtaposition of these beautiful scenery and sounds. And also the flip side that are like, well there's some really challenging stuff that's happening right here. And those things are like that'd be tough to do. You can listen to those sounds, you can have people tell you, but to be there with stumbling over sticks and smelling the air and hearing it, and then you've got the boat that was playing like U2 or something on the river. But I've really been trying to think about that. What's the thing that's different? And so for me that was one of those that really created what ultimately is something that I will not forget for the rest of my life. I mean that for me, just deepened my understanding of myself as a white guy in this work and what's required of me. And so I feel like that was just one of the moments that happened during the weekend.
Kevin Eppler:
Yeah, thanks for that. You put me right back in that spot and feeling your hands on my shoulder because we walked hands upon the shoulders of the person in front of you obviously to invoke this sense of being shackled, yoked together and stumbling along a path that we didn't really know well. And with hills and rocks and roots of trees exposed and maybe you see it coming and maybe you don't and you stumble, and it was very much a visceral experience in that regard. To talk about Zoe and Taylor. Luckily I've been in shared space with them multiple times, more Taylor than Zoe, but that was probably my fourth or fifth time meeting Zoe in person, that is of course. And I could still feel Zoe's hug that she has this way of hugging you that just warms your soul. You just feel her fully enveloping you and you can feel this transference of love. That's invaluable, that irreplicable via a Zoom screen, of course.
And so I think about all the other texture and the feeling, the physical feeling of walking foot fall after foot fall on the trail of, to Tim's point, the sounds, the birds chirping while we're in this really solemn, empathic experience. And you are juxtaposed to the party boat jamming out on Miley Cyrus and U2 going right down the river next to you as you're walking. And I actually had the instinct like, "Wait, we should stop and let that boat pass because it seems so disjointed to what we're experiencing now." And then it hit me as I walked and I kind of surrendered to the moment and realized, wait a minute, this is exactly what was going on in 1850s, in Richmond where there was the gentry and the social lights partying in the heart of the city and that noise, of course carried across the waters of the James River where enslaved people were on the other bank being disembarked from boats and darkness, because their sight and their smell was too offensive to the women of Richmond. So it had to be done in darkness.
Of course that was what's happening. Of course, conversations and backyard parties and things like that were always happening. And it was so fitting to have that as the backdrop and just to speak to the, I mean, I don't have any other word, but the insanity of that institution of slavery. And as much of the weekend and the value of the weekend was being able to shake hands and look each other in the eye and I could see the tear drop swelling or I could see the joy, I could feel it in the warmth of the handshake and I've lost count of the amount of hugs. So that was pretty incredible.
Shannon Mudd:
So I've also been reflecting on our experience at the Slave Trail and there's a lot to unpack there. But one of the things that I realized in trying to talk to somebody about it is the reaction was were just trying to feel guilty or were the leaders trying to make you feel guilty? And I really wanted to make clear that we had put in a lot of work and preparation to get to the point where we could be open to this experience of going along the slave trail and the various of physical, visceral experiences that we had there. And what I've really been thinking a lot about again is Jay's question, Jay Coen Gilbert's question to think not only and become empathic, not only of the enslaved people, but also to think what was going on with the white families.
And I think that Kevin is right in terms of yeah, it was just woven throughout the whole society. But also I think about just the kind of middle gymnastics that white families had to go through to deal with this cognitive dissonance of having values of caring about family, of caring about relationships and caring about justice and living in the midst of this. I mean, just think about how screwed up family life was. Our guided experience of the slave trail with our equity partners and Reverend T. It was not about bringing up guilt, it was about recognizing the experiences of the people at the time and recognizing that such trauma on all sides doesn't just disappear and doesn't just go away with time. I think that Reverend T noted that well.
I started thinking about this when we were at the first monument site before the Slave Trail experience, and we visited a monument for Confederate soldiers and sailors. And it was wasn't about a particular individual this time. And Reverend T talked about the erection of the statue and the others and the power of the Southern women who put these up. And pointed to these women were really reeling from what had happened after the war when 75% of all fighting age men went to war and 35% of them were maimed or killed, right? It completely upended their society. And he uttered the phrase in relationship to this statue about the South is going to rise again.
And that is something I heard growing up in Jacksonville. And I couldn't help but wonder like, "What did that mean to people in Richmond and in Jacksonville over the years? What did they see in their mind's eye? And how did they had to romanticize life pre-Civil War?" Because they had to somehow deal with this cognitive dissonance, this holding these things that are in complete tension. And I think that that tension, those mental gymnastics that we put ourselves through, we're still feeling it today. We're still feeling it today and I think that's really important. There's still healing that needs to happen.
Tim Cynova:
Noah, what's on your mind as you reflect about that weekend?
Noah Becker:
Couple things with respect to the physical being there. For me, one of the things was when we started the tour and the reverend had grown up in the area, was really not drastically older than us. And just being there, seeing him and seeing just we're on the highest spot in the area and looking at where the statue was and this was over me for almost my entire life that was really just being in that space. And then the same thing, having somebody really not that 10 or 15 years older than most of us saying, "Yeah, I couldn't go into these places until I was a teenager." And how close that brought to you hear these things and you think about these things and you're thinking about them, so much of them being so far in the past, but then there's somebody standing in front who's dealt with all of this. And maybe it says something about my life that I'm not often that connected with people who are telling the experience they've had. But that was really a visceral part of it for me.
Tim Cynova:
One of the interesting things for me was we can role play online. We can talk about like all right, when we go for Thanksgiving, we're with our family members, how might we approach this differently? Or how might we approach a conversation with someone that we truly disagree with? Or when someone says something racist, how do we respond? This was real life and being able to see how people responded In the moment. Kevin's wearing the White Men for Racial Justice T-shirt, which every day a group of people were wearing this and then walking into the Mexican restaurant with a group of 40 white guys where a third of them are wearing White Men for Racial Justice. You had real moments where people are responding to this group of people coming in. And that created this moment at the Mexican restaurant where someone's walking in and they're like, "Hey, I like your shirt."
And you're like, "Well, what do you like about it?" And then that created this conversation and like half an hour later where like, "Wait, they're still here." It was one of those unscripted, unplanned, unexpected moments that wouldn't have happened. You couldn't have really planned that moment out. That was a genuine exchange by something that happened. Really, it was the T-shirt. So I think those were the kind of moments where there was the planned learning, but also the unplanned learning and the unplanned experience and being in the basketball championship was a Black space. And on the first night, Zoe had asked people list seven Black spaces that you've been in your life. And there are a number of conversations where some people had family, but if I don't have family, we're like, I'm trying to get to three. Then having those moments during the weekend, having it reflected on the very few Black spaces where many of us have been in our lives and then being in them.
Kevin Eppler:
Yeah, it was really powerful. It speaks to this reality that I believe it was Jim Wallace in the book, America's Original Sin points out that 75% of white Americans do not have an authentic relationship with a Black, Indigenous or other person of color, 75%. Not like, "Oh yeah, we're colleagues at work and we talk and we're associates that way." But have you been to each other's house? Have you been to the barbecue? Have you been to the birthday party? Have you gone to church together? And do you hang out in other spaces other than your work environment? Whatever. That's the question. And by that criteria, 75% of white Americans say no.
So that's an interesting dynamic and then the experience with the T-shirt expand upon that Colin, what Tim was saying is we transitioned from this incredible community basketball game, this championship of the RVA League for Safer Streets, which Paul Taylor, we affectionate called P or Taylor has organized for years around these workshops for conflict resolution. And you can't compete in the basketball games if you don't complete the workshops first.
So we went to the championship game and saw an incredible celebration there and then transitioned to this Mexican restaurant. And we're arriving in a variety of cars and in waves, and some of us got there early and some were a little bit later and whatnot. And most of us were in the restaurant when one of our fellow members arrived and got out of the car and caught the eye of these three women eating out on the patio extension of the restaurant. And one Black woman says, "I love your shirt." And he says, "Well thank you. What do you like about it?" And to which she responds, essentially she says, "It means you see me. It means my story. It means our history." Something along those lines. Mic drop moment. And Zoe watching this unfold essentially is from what I understand, builds upon that momentum and says, "Well come on in. Come meet these men. When you all finish up your dinner, do us the favor, please stop by. Come say hello. We'd love to introduce the community to you."
So 20 minutes go by, we're ordering drinks, we're ordering food, and sure enough, these three women turn the corner to the corner of the restaurant in which we are. And Zoe says, "Here they are." And people start clapping and hey. She said, "All right, come on. Come on ladies, come on. Come on." She calls them queens, of course. She says, "Queens, come on, introduce yourself to these men and say to them whatever you need to say." And one after the other, they stand forward, they say their name and burst into tears. The only sentence that any one of them was able to get out was one woman stepped forward and said, "My name is... and I'm raising a Black son." And then she burst into tears. And the last one, she couldn't even, she was just waving because she's crying so much, because they're so moved to see not just one or two but 40 white men rocking White Men for Racial Justice.
They were so moved to know that there's a community out there working on our own racial journey, our own journey towards equity and justice, our own awakening that they couldn't speak. They were rendered speechless. And so a bunch of us pop up and start hugging and start talking and they just say, "You have no idea what this means to us." And I shared this with Tim and some others, I think that the sad thing about that for me, was that that's how low the bar is. Meaning all we did was wear T-shirts and that shattered them. That's how little hope they have otherwise, right? At least in their community and their lived experience from what I heard them say. And I'll never forget that. That's transformative.
Colin Lacey:
That's amazing. It was going to be one of the questions I wanted to ask you guys was like was there a pivotal moment for you in the weekend? And Kevin, that absolutely sounds like one of them, but it seems like there were so many.
Kevin Eppler:
It might not even the top one or two for others because there's another one that I can think of that was pretty pivotal, but that certainly was perhaps it for me, but I'll let the other guys speak, Of course. Love to hear what other candidates you guys could uplift.
Noah Becker:
I think following on with Kevin, to me that was in a lot of ways the most pivotal because I came from the perspective and I still have this perspective, and I was thinking earlier in the day and doing that tour that even if back in the day there were 40 men who were in favor of making changes or doing whatever, it just wouldn't have happened because the system was so set and oppressive that it would've needed far more than that to make any difference. At the end of the day, the only thing that changed back then was a massive war of incredible scale, especially relative to the number of people in the country. That took something so huge to change it that it got me thinking about, well the only thing you could do, the best thing you do is not get into a system like that.
Because once you get so far, maybe there's only a war or something they can get out of it. I was so, in a lot of ways, depressed or thinking about that there's not hope for things and that even that what we're doing is just not... it might soothe us, but it might not be as helpful, but then that moment, what, 2, 4, 6 hours later to at least get that look even what we're doing. And [inaudible 00:33:39] it's a little of it. All I did was show up, but we didn't do anything but that it did make a difference and forget about how it impacts us, the fact that we made a difference was pretty profound. We made a difference for just doing so little. So it at least balanced, for me, a little bit the fact that is there still hope? Are there things that can still be done to make the world a little bit better?
Tim Cynova:
There's this moment, really honored that I had a chance to talk with Zoe about this and that Ned recorded it after the weekend, because there was a moment that happened on the slave trail that was like someone shoved defib paddles into my soul and shocked it. I can't explain exactly what I felt, but I'm like, "That just changes the way I relate to this work." And it was in response and I'll let listeners... we'll tell you about it later, Colin, but I'll let listeners sort of hear Zoe talk about it. But it was in response to prompt from Jay Coen Gilbert, as we're all reflecting, we had just walked the Slave Trail and we were sort of unpacking it with the Reverend T and how we felt about it, and people were empathizing with the enslaved people. If I had lost my child and I was next to a child or I had just come 90 days, 120 days off of a ship in the middle of the night and talking about it.
And Jay reflected back, it's wonderful that we're feeling empathy for the enslaved people, but no one's mentioning what about the ship's captain or the guards or the financiers or the merchants or the bankers or our ancestors who were in these roles. And that was a moment where we're like, "Right, totally missing that." And then this led to this really pivotal moment for me. On the plane back, someone was mentioning Brooks Brothers made clothes for enslaved people and we're like, "Interesting." So that led to more learning about Brooks Brothers and the whole network of complicity in this institution of slavery. And it just sort of made you see how it was all tied together. It didn't matter where you were, relative to the Mason Dixon Line. It was whether you lived in New York or whether worked for a bank, whatever it might be, it was sort of a reframing of that.
And I think we probably in sort of a virtual sense, could unpack that a little bit. But again, sort of standing there in moment you're like, "People were standing right here in 1860 or in 1850 and they'd gotten off the boat right there." Just sort of made it resonate in a different way for me.
Kevin Eppler:
That's another candidate. Colin, I'd imagine one of us would bring that up because I'm glad that Tim, you had the opportunity to unpack that some more with Zoe because that was an incredible and courageous act and a gift to all of us. Yeah, so I think that I didn't think I could leave with more respect and appreciation for our equity advisors, but somehow I did for both of them, because seeing Taylor in his element in the RVA League just took what I thought was already peaked appreciation for him and his brilliance, that took it to a whole other level. That offering from Zoe, as well as her post slave master syndrome talk the night before just reminded me of how lucky we are to have them and their gifts and their offerings to us and to be in relationship with them in the way that we are.
Tim Cynova:
Colin, now that we're like, "Hey, should have been there, it was great." Which is always like "Cool. I wasn't, thanks." I've been wondering as a peer support circle and knowing that one of our five weren't able to be with us, what our responsibility is and how we sort of bridge the gap, if you will. And I'm curious as you think Colin, about what happened, us talking about what happened, but also this work, there's a much longer arc. What might come to mind or what might resonate or this would be helpful or please don't tell me how cool it was, I wasn't there.
Colin Lacey:
It's a great question. I think that even your enthusiasm and excitement about the experience is so visceral, it transfers even virtually. I got that same sense when recently a group got together in Philadelphia, as well on the next WMRJ call, there's just so much excitement and energy in the group. And so yes, I think for me, it just reinforces that I need to book my flight to arrive way earlier than the schedule so I can make sure that even in case of disaster, I can get there. But absolutely committed to figuring out how to make it next time. I'm so not disheartened at all, it just makes me want it more. So I'm thrilled that was so reaffirming for everyone.
Tim Cynova:
As we prepared to land the plan on our conversation today, I'm wondering what we each might want to offer into the space or as we think about the work as white men supporting each other, holding each other accountable.
Kevin Eppler:
I kind of find myself naturally going in that direction of thinking about the role we have as white men to play in the lives of other white men. I hope everybody who went on that community weekend will come away from that weekend feeling invigorated, recommitted, will walk away with a tangible sense of the value and the impact of the work that we're doing. Will walk away knowing how important and needed the work is. And will feel inspired, perhaps to take a piece of the courage that Zoe demonstrated for us to engage other white men and to get them into the community or other anti-racist spaces.
If you're listening to Tim's podcast and series and you're listening to these conversations and the reflections on that weekend, I hope you're hearing from them a testimony to the men in this community and the joy that we find being together, even though the work can be at times quite difficult. But the sense of connection and community and seeing each other and being seen by other is healing for so much of what ails us, and we need more spaces like these were white folks, were white men are particularly are showing up to their learning and unlearning, to be challenged, to be held accountable. So I'm asking all of your listeners to grow curious, to find more about WMRJ and again, other white anti-racist caucus spaces. If you're already in the community and you're listening, I challenge you to reach out, to invite others into this community, because hopefully it means to you what it means to me.
And to everybody I find myself regularly asking for this, because when the community does it, it means so much to me. Which is to hold me accountable, just keep raising the bar. That's what I appreciated about Jay's prompt on the Slave Trails that it made me shift my thinking. Even if I had some resistance to it at first, so much wisdom from this community calls me, as I said in our closing circle, to be a better man. And I think that's invaluable, I think being called by other men to be better, in ways that is done with love and without judgment. Too few spaces that I've been in do that. And so that's my final message is come on in, come on in. It's hard, but you're not alone and we'll walk it arm in arm and there's room. We all have something to learn. We all have something to contribute.
Colin Lacey:
Yeah, that's amazing. Kevin. I constantly kind of come back to the realization that there's never a point at which we're done here. This is lifelong and beyond work. It's very easy to think that we can do a six week or 12 week or whatever program and suddenly we've checked a box and we kind of like to get the cookie and move on and that's just not how this works. There's no certificate that we're going to get at some point to say we've mastered something here. I think we have to embrace the approach of just lifelong learning and engagement and we have, I think, all realized how much we have to deal with our own shame and re-embrace our humanity to actually engage in this work. And so that's where a group like this is just phenomenal to be able to provide the support to engage in those conversations because it's very hard to just simply be the good white person kind of in isolation. There's just so much to unpack, if you will. And so that's where I come away from all of this.
Noah Becker:
Yeah, I mean I appreciate what everybody said and I really hear what Colin says, just thinking through about this, it's never going to end and it's ongoing and just keeping the hope and keeping the faith. And that's why somebody, like I said, was so powerful for me the event of the Mexican restaurant sort of help keep the one side of my mind that maybe there is hope and opportunity and things that we can do better and improvements we can make, but just knowing that it's permanent in the work is never going to end.
Shannon Mudd:
I am really trying to seek proximity with other communities and to be curious and to show up and just be present. So not to take the lead or try to solve problems. Cause there's a lot of learning that still needs to happen. So it's important to sort of be aware that this is a process we need to play the long game. I'm also really trying to purposely show up to spaces that are working to address racial inequities as we are learning, white men seem to be sparse in these places for some reason, perhaps because we are the most at risk. I've also learned to recognize the value of having spaces outside of work where you are just another person, not someone in power. To use those opportunities to be aware of power dynamics in that space. I'm finding it allows me to better recognize those dynamics, those dynamics of power and recognize unfolding situations, and it gives me some practice in responding a little more slower and more intentionally, rather than just reacting and just trying to fix things all the time.
Tim Cynova:
There's something that resonated for me as we were wrapping up on Sunday, and it's a comment that a friend of mine made several years ago and he said, "People will spend a lifetime avoiding an awkward 90 second conversation." And as I think about this work, how many just it's going to be awkward, that 90 seconds will be awkward. We'll make it through it, but how much richer and deeper and meaningful it will be because you've done that thing or you've had that conversation. And I think about this work, the lifelong work, we're going to have a lot of these 90 seconds that let's just take them as they come. And to be a part of a community like this where you can get that support. Where you can be held accountable, you can have that awkward 90 second conversation and be like, "Tim, come on." But that's grounded in caring and love and support.
It was incredibly meaningful to me and I just want to say, gentlemen, many thanks both for today, for sharing so honestly and vulnerably but thank you so much for being part of my own journey. My own personal journey in this work, for challenging me, for holding me accountable, for your support. And thanks for being on podcast.
Kevin Eppler:
Likewise, I echo that appreciation for all of you and for holding me accountable and calling me to my best self. So I share that gratitude. Tim, thank you for hosting us. Thank you for this incredible space and I look forward to talking again soon.
Colin Lacey:
Absolutely. Thanks so much, Tim. This was awesome.
Noah Becker:
Yeah, thanks Tim. This is great.
Tim Cynova:
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep12: Conversation with Jared Fishman (EP.65)
In episode twelve of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Jared Fishman, a civil right lawyer and Founding Executive Director of Justice Innovation Lab, a company building data-driven solutions for a more equitable, effective & fair justice system.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
September 9, 2022
In episode twelve of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Jared Fishman, a civil right lawyer and Founding Executive Director of Justice Innovation Lab, a company building data-driven solutions for a more equitable, effective & fair justice system.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore resources related to this episode? Jared suggests:
[Race and the Criminal Justice System] New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
[Race and the Criminal Justice System] 13th, A Documentary
[Race and the Criminal Justice System] Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon
[Race and the Criminal Justice System] Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Jibran Muhammad
[Race and the Criminal Justice System] Punishment without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal by Alexandra Natapoff (on the impact of low level charges)
[Race and the Criminal Justice System] Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John Pfaff (on prosecutors role)
[Data and Justice] Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil
[Date and Justice] The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
[Alternatives to the Status Quo] Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair by Danielle Sered
[Behavioral Science] The Behavioral Code: The Hidden Ways the Law Makes Us Better…or Worse by Benjamin Van Rooij & Adam Fine
[Behavioral Science] The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haiti
The Marshal Project’s daily newsletter of the most important criminal justice stories from across the U.S.
Serial Podcast, Season 3 is another good resource explainer on the Criminal Justice system.
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
JARED FISHMAN is a former federal prosecutor and the founder and executive director of Justice Innovation Lab, an organization that designs data-informed solutions for a more equitable, effective, and fair justice system. Justice Innovation Lab uses a collaborative approach to identify and fix inequities in jurisdictions across the United States. Prior to founding Justice Innovation Lab, Jared served for 14 years as a senior civil rights prosecutor at the US Department of Justice, where he led some of the most complex civil rights prosecutions in the country, securing convictions in high-profile cases involving police misconduct, hate crimes and human trafficking. He began his career as a line prosecutor at the Washington, DC US Attorney’s Office, where he handled domestic violence and sex offense cases. Jared regularly speaks on issues of data-driven criminal justice reform, police accountability, hate crimes, and human trafficking, and has trained international and local police, prosecutors, and judges. His work and analysis have been featured on CNN, CBS, CBC, and in the New York Times and the Washington Post., and he serves as adjunct faculty at Georgetown University and at the George Washington University Law School.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Jared Fishman:
A lot of lives hang in the balance. We have an obligation for those of us, with power, with strength, with connections, with money, to try to undo some of these harms. One of the examples we often use is if you can, as a thought experience, imagine a building where the person who built that building hated people with disability, and they went out of their way to make it the least accessible building possible. Now fast forward a hundred years that person's gone. You're now the owner of that property. What is your responsibility to deal with it? Even if you don't have that intent, it is still a building that's creating adverse effects for people with disabilities. There are folks who say the only solution is to tear it down.
I spent my early career working in war zones where people were tearing things down. My takeaway is that is not the solution. We're not going to wind up with something better, but we have to figure out where are the levers to make the system better now. There is so much low-hanging fruit and it is far harder than it should be, but there are real places where we can make a difference right now if we take action and if we don't then that's on us.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. A podcast about, well that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini-series called White Men and The Journey Towards Anti-racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast, where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I introduce the series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens, others inclusion, and belonging, still others equity and impact. Through these conversations will explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing.
We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging, and since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with. On today's conversation, I'm joined by Jared Fishman, the founding executive director of Justice Innovation Lab, a company building data-driven solutions for a more equitable, effective, and fair justice system. You can find Jared's bio linked in the description for this episode. In the interest of time, let's get going. Jared, welcome to the podcast.
Jared Fishman:
Thanks for having me.
Tim Cynova:
How do you typically introduce yourself and the work that you do?
Jared Fishman:
I'm a civil rights lawyer and a former federal prosecutor and now the founder and executive director of Justice Innovation Lab. The work that we do at Justice Innovation Lab helps law enforcement decision makers, typically prosecutors and police, use their data to make their system less racist, to understand how they are making decisions that impact the lives of the people within their jurisdictions, and how they could do it better.
Tim Cynova:
What does that look like in practice then?
Jared Fishman:
In practice, we partner with jurisdictions, usually district attorneys or the chief prosecutor of a jurisdiction, and we get the data of all of the decisions that they make throughout the criminal justice process. That includes how they set bond, how they choose to charge or dismiss cases, and what recommendations they have at sentencing. Ultimately, what are the results of those decisions, who is incarcerated for how long, what are the impacts of those decisions? Within that data set, we're helping them understand, are they making decisions equitably. Can they be making decisions better? Where are the problems and opportunities in their jurisdiction in order to have more fair, more effective justice?
Tim Cynova:
How long has the organization been in existence and doing the work?
Jared Fishman:
We launched about a year and a half ago. For many years, I was a federal prosecutor and this project got underway because I had worked a murder case, the murder of Walter Scott, a black man who was murdered by a police officer in Charleston, South Carolina, and through the course of the prosecution and investigation in that case discussions with people in the community and particularly with the lead prosecutor there about systemic issues facing that community. The question was, are we being fair? What can we do to be more fair? The chief prosecutor collected years of data but didn't have the internal capacity to be able to understand that data and to be able to use that data to make better decisions.
After being a prosecutor for a really long time and spending my career looking at individual accountability and holding individual people responsible for civil rights violations, what bothered me over and over were the systemic problems that were not being addressed. So often when we see a police shooting or we see police violence, we look at the individual who committed that crime or committed that action and try to see, can we hold that person responsible.
What I've seen over the course of my whole career is that these people are operating within a context that is much broader than any given individual. What can we do as law enforcement, as prosecutors, as members of the community, to ensure that people are set to make better decisions? We take that data and we look to see, all right, how long is it taking you to handle a case for a black versus a white defendant? What are the penalties associated for that for someone in terms of who's being incarcerated and for how long, and do we see differences based on race? If we are, what are causing those decisions so that your prosecutors can make better, fair decisions? For many years, when I started off as a prosecutor, I had hundreds of cases and I was making hundreds of decision every single day. Though I wanted fair decision and I wanted to do the right thing in any individual case, the reality is, I didn't know whether or not, in the end, I made a fair or just decision because there was no way to evaluate those decisions in any concrete way.
What we're hoping to do is to give prosecutors those tools, give prosecutors those answers so that they can make better, more fair decisions. A lot of times what that means is prosecuting fewer cases. What we've seen in recent years is that most offices are dealing with low-level non-violent crimes that disproportionately affect people of color and people in lower-income communities side. It's a result of the way those communities are policed and prosecutors are in a situation where they have the greatest ability to affect change if only they use those levers of power in a more effective, more thoughtful, and more equitable manner.
Tim Cynova:
Really fascinating work that you're doing. I guess maybe let's go a little bit deeper and back up and say, what led you to be on a podcast with two white guys talking about race and racism?
Jared Fishman:
Yeah. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and I grew up in an environment where my schools both sent me to Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolence and Stone Mountain State Park with the Confederate generals and formally the headquarters of the KKK without any irony. This was a part of my upbringing that we would go to both of these places. I remember growing up and being very enamored by the civil rights movement, but thinking that I had missed, I had missed the moment that it had come, that I wish that I could go integrate restaurant counters, go down and help advance voting rights and all of these things. That time had come. What came to realize over many, many years is that many of the most egregious and most obvious forms of racism had disappeared, yet the systems and structures incorporated many of those same racist ideologies.
Now they're just harder to see. As I became a civil rights lawyer, it started off by wanting to advocate on behalf of victims. I wanted to get justice for victims of crimes, but once I was in the system in my first week as a prosecutor in DC Superior Court, you can't help but notice that almost every single person in there is black. You can't help but notice that the impacts of our system is disproportionately affecting people of color, most of whom are lower income. That to me was really shocking so I didn't want to prosecute people for low-level drug offenses. I didn't want to use the prosecutorial power for that. I wanted to use it to speak on behalf of people who were victimized by the system.
For 14 years, I was a prosecutor at the justice department, traveling all around the United States, including as far off as us territories in the South Pacific. What became clear over and over again was that the problems that I had seen in DC Superior Court were not unique to Washington DC. They existed in South Carolina. They existed in Georgia and Louisiana and Kansas and California. These are baked into the system themselves and more often than not people don't realize what is happening. As a white guy, number one, I've had access to seeing what is happening in court across the country over and over again. I also have access to levers of power. I have access to prosecutors who are making those decisions. I have access to police officers. I have the ability to convene. To me, I see that as a responsibility of having that access to number one, raise attention to people who may not have that same access. Then number two, to use the levers of power that we have to actually do something to fix the problem.
Tim Cynova:
I've felt over the past two years, along with the global pandemic and also George Floyd's murder that white people, in particular, have started to see systems that they've not noticed before. We've seen supply chains and unemployment and all of these things that maybe white people through white privilege and white advantage have been protected from seeing. People are starting to see the systems behind the curtain if you will. When looking at the work you're doing, what are some of the things that white people still might not understand about the system in which you're operating and trying to change?
Jared Fishman:
Well, I'll take one example from some of the work that we've done. We looked at prosecutorial decision to see whether or not black and white people are being treated equally in the system, but you don't just look at black and white in the aggregate. You want to be comparing similarly situated people so people who are charged with the same types of crime, people who are coming from similar situations. What we found was quite interestingly on the whole, at least for some of the decision points that we were looking at black and white people were being treated equally when they're similarly situated. Yet what we were seeing on the back end were massive disproportionalities in incarceration. How is that possible?
How is it possible that you can treat people equally and still have massively different results? The answer is that if you put racist information systems, racially oriented arrests, to start off the system, then no matter how equal and fair you are, once it's in there, you're still going to have those disparate results on the back end. Explaining that to people has been, I think really enlightening because a lot of times, most of the people that I deal with, they want to do the right thing. They want their communities to be safer. They want to be fair. They don't always realize how decisions that get made before them can then mean that the results of their own work are unfair or unjust. Then once coming to that realization, the question is, okay, well now what can I do about it, and what is my responsibility to do about it?
Tim Cynova:
What are some of the things that people are actually able to do because I see this as a question like, all right, so I get it, but what do I do as a single person here, as a single white person?
Jared Fishman:
Well, we're working with the decision-makers so a lot of it is looking at your data and asking better questions. I think a lot of times, at least when I started off, I thought we would be using data to show problems. That we would be using the data to show where the differences and the disparities are and that's true. We do that, but even more interesting than that is asking questions about the data. How do you define whether or not you're being fair? What are the factors that go into your decision-making? To people who are not in the law enforcement system, it's different.
The work that we're doing is looking at who is the decision maker. I think one of my big realizations about everything is that someone is ultimately the decider. Someone is the decision maker. What we try to do is make sure that that person is informed so that they can make better decisions. Whether or not you're an executive or you're just a regular person, we make countless decisions every day, and having access to the information that helps enlighten us as to what are impacting and affecting our decisions is the first step in making better decisions.
Tim Cynova:
What does the Justice Innovation Lab structure look like? Who's a part of it? How does it work? Have you sort inwardly taken the data to make data-driven decisions in how you've structured the organization in the group and your policies, practices, and procedures?
Jared Fishman:
Who are we? We're a collection of prosecutors and data scientists and economists and visualizers and leadership coaches, each of whom bring very different, unique skill sets and perspectives to trying to address this problem. One of the things I realize that if we're going to take on something as big as mass incarceration or racial disparities in the criminal justice system, it requires a lot more skill sets than typically get brought together. What I think is most exciting about this work is that talking to a prosecutor versus talking to an economist versus talking to a designer, have very different thoughts about how to tackle these problems. Collectively, we come up with better questions and better answers as a result of that. We are our own team that then gets supplemented by people who want to work on these issues.
We've worked with an ethical coach who's a consortium of leadership coaching who's provided services and leadership training to prosecutors. We've worked with academics who either have an engineering capacity or an analysis capacity to help bring that to the table and we work with impacted communities and people who have had this experience themselves to help shape our analysis. Sometimes when you become very data-driven, you forget that the numbers are actually real humans so it's important to remember those stories and those experiences of the people who are most impacted at. We use a design thinking human-centered design approach in how we tackle problems.
We try to meet people where they're at. We try to understand the problem that they're trying to solve. Then we help them think about that problem in a different way, partly by looking at their data, partly by thinking about what questions would you want to ask, and then looking at the impact. At the end of the day, our real goal is to affect outcomes that... We're looking to change what is happening in systems. Sometimes those solutions are easier than we think. It just takes people coming together to ask those questions in a way that allows us to explore solutions.
Tim Cynova:
Describing your team as reminiscent of IDEO, where you're bringing together a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds to reimagine what might be. At the same time, you're bringing together people with diversity of thought and perspective, and life experience. What does that dynamic look like on your team when you're in the room with all of that difference and trying to work on a project together?
Jared Fishman:
It's been really enlightening. We have one guy on our team who designs our curriculums and he has a very different approach to best practices in adult learning and what do adults need to learn and thinking about objectives of sessions and it's transformed not only the way we build curriculums, but now it's, every time I have a meeting, I start by walking myself through this process. What am I hoping to accomplish? It's so simple in so many ways, but yet we don't do it. When I listen to economists talk about incentives and incentive structures. Now I see incentive structures everywhere I go. So often as a lawyer and I know as a young lawyer, part of the reason I got into the law was this idea, well, if we had rules and we had effective rules, we could build a better society.
Well, that's part of it. We need rules, but we have to understand how people's behaviors are affected so to have an economist and a curriculum developer and my comms person talking about how do you tell a better story, it just means that you're able to be more thoughtful in your analysis and more effective in your implementation. None of us have the skill to do this by ourselves. We have to partner and collaborate. Finding people with the dedication to tackle these complicated problems, who both understand that they are hard and we will not always win and we will often fail, but also are open to broader possibilities. It's kind of cheesy to say that it's magical, but it can be really magical sometimes.
Tim Cynova:
A lot of people talk about diversity of teams and what happens. When you get to sit in a team like that, you're like, right, this is what everyone was talking about. When you actually see it at play and realize how that informs just the way you work yourself, it's such a fun thing too. You might be trying to tackle some really serious meaty things, but the fun in energizing an intellectually stimulating environment that creates oftentimes is magical.
Jared Fishman:
Yeah. It just enables you to think about problems differently. A lot of people talk about innovation. We need more innovation. We need more creativity. What I've come to realize innovation really means is taking someone else's good idea and bringing it to a new context. That's all innovation is so if we can expand who we're hanging out with so that the advances in cognitive psychology or the advances in data processing, or the advances in economics, and we can learn what they have learned and say, all right, well now can we apply that to this new context of race, of justice, of what that means? It enables us to do things in different ways that are inherently going to have better effects.
Tim Cynova:
I found that often talking about reframing anti-racism work as innovation sort of clicks with some people. When you realize there's no playbook for this. There might be wise practices or things you should do versus things maybe you shouldn't do, but what's exciting and also challenging is we're learning together. We're making this up as we go along oftentimes, and oftentimes it's bespoke to our organizations and what we're trying to do in our resources, and whether we define it as equity or justice or anti-racism or anti-oppression or belonging and inclusion, it's also one of the really exciting things about this work in that we are struggling to change systems that have been around for oftentimes hundreds of years but doing it in a way that is bringing together all these different perspectives, but anti-racism work often isn't framed as innovation.
Equity justice work often isn't framed as that. I think in reframing, it might help people unlock some of that risk tolerance too. We're not going to have the right answer always, but how else do you approach innovation and using that frame I feel, especially for white people in general sort of lets them settle into, oh right, this is unknown and we're sort of learning as we go along.
Jared Fishman:
One of the things is, if you think about America's mass incarceration problem, we've got 2.3 million people who are incarcerated. The problem is even bigger than that. We have 10.6 million people who are arrested and wind up in jail every single year. It's a lot of people. It's an overwhelming question. Part of the way the American legal system is set up is incredibly local. These are decisions that are being made at the county level so fixing that problem actually means getting down to the county level and trying to help those people make better decisions, make more fair decisions, recognizing the places where their values and their goals are out of alignment with what their actual practice is. That takes a step of slowing down and really starting to take it step by step. If you start with one problem that people can wrap their heads around, for example, time to disposition of a case, which is not remotely sexy to anyone who's not in this field, but it's about how fast and how fairly and how efficiently can a case move through the system.
Everyone in the system can wrap their head around that problem. Then you take it step by step. All right, well, what do we think are some of these causes, what do we think are leading to these results? You brainstorm and you wind up saying, all right, well, there's like 25 things that people think may be affecting these decisions. Can we measure it? Yes. Okay. Which one of those things had the biggest effect? Let's work on addressing one of these. One of the things that I found most exciting about our work is it's those little successes that then lead to bigger successes that we continually iterate and build off what we learn.
If you think of this path, not as linear, that you have to have the answers before you start off that you have to have the change in mind, but really you have a problem. We're going to tackle this problem. We're going to recognize that we're not going to solve a hundred percent of the problem right off the bat, but maybe we can solve 20%. Maybe we can solve 50% and with each new step forward, we come closer to tackling that problem. That's what people need to stay motivated. It's what we need to keep moving forward in progress and recognizing, yeah, we get stuff wrong. We have theories that turn out not to be true, but the fact that we're asking the questions, trying to measure it, developing hypotheses, testing those hypotheses, that's how we're going to develop the evidence base for broader, smarter change.
Tim Cynova:
Several years ago, I watched the documentary Slavery by Another Name and there was a quote. I'll get the quote paraphrased, but not exact that has resonated with me since I watched that. It was essentially someone was remarking did they really think they would let 4 million free laborers just up and walk away? This was in context of the peonage system and sort of what happened after the emancipation proclamation. As I think about your work and I think about resilience and I think about you and your team tackling this massive challenge, systemic issue, where do you find your strength and resilience in this work personally, and as a team and leading a team that's tackling such a huge problem?
Jared Fishman:
I'm constantly grateful for the opportunities that I've had in life. I think when you can see the worst excess of punishment when you see people who are stuck in a cage because they don't have enough money to make bail. When you see how mental health and lower-income communities is treated, it's like that is not a problem that I have to live with. I have been fortunate not to have to do that as I've had plenty of problems and challenges in my life, but I've been fortunate to have resources to be able to respond to that. What continues to make me able to do this work is knowing that that is not true for a lot of people. A lot of lives hang in the balance and we have an obligation for those of us, with power, with strength, with connections, with money, to try to undo some of these harms.
One of the examples we often use is if you can, as a thought experience, imagine a building where the person who built that building hated people with disability, and they went out of their way to make it the least accessible building possible. Now fast forward a hundred years that person's gone. You're now the owner of that property. What is your responsibility to deal with it? Even if you don't have that intent, it is still a building that's creating adverse effects for people with disabilities. There are folks who say the only solution is to tear it down. I spent my early career working in war zones where people were tearing things down. My takeaway is that is not the solution. We're not going to wind up with something better, but we have to figure out where are the levers to make the system better now. There is so much low-hanging fruit and it is far harder than it should be, but there are real places where we can make a difference right now, if we take action and if we don't, then that's on us.
Tim Cynova:
Your comment about not tearing it down resonated with me. Why do you say we shouldn't tear it down?
Jared Fishman:
What happens when we tear down institutions? We see this happening in the United States right now is people are weakening institutions that have, I mean, America has plenty of problems, but we also have institutions that have protected rights for people for hundreds of years in ways that don't exist in other countries. We have to have systems in place to protect the rights of people and if we tear those down, what's going to fill the gaps? It's going to be wealthy-powered interests that are going to just recreate new systems of power that are going to benefit those. We have to be working inside that system to empower people. Part of the challenge is not everyone in positions of power want to do this so we can throw our hands up and say, well, people in positions of power don't want to do this.
I don't think that's true. I think there are a lot of people in positions of power who do want to do something different but don't have the tools or the ideas or the know-how or the team behind them to help answer these questions. That's what we have to be doing. We have to be having the conversations about the need for these things. Then we have to be giving people the tools, the resources, the partners, to be able to make that a reality. Thinking about it, talking about it is the easy part. It's the building and the change that is far harder. It takes longer and it takes more resources and more ideas.
Tim Cynova:
How would you respond to a prosecutor saying, I'm game, I'm ready to do this, but I can't because those above me aren't interested in doing this work? What am I supposed to do?
Jared Fishman:
We work in places where at the very least leadership is interested in taking a closer look. They don't necessarily recognize there's a problem. They don't necessarily know what the answers are, but they're willing to be reflective and to at least ask questions. That's what we require to work with. I think there are a lot of people out there who are not there yet. We could worry about trying to convince those people. That's not our sweet spot. I think the majority of the country says like, all right, something's not right. I want to do something about it, but I don't know what. If you're willing to be self-reflective, if you're willing to ask hard questions, and then when you find out the answers do things differently, then that's all I need to work with you. That's the mindset that we need for change. There are enough people out there that we can start there.
One of the things that I've come to realize about prosecutors and part of the reasons we work with prosecutors is that prosecutors are the most powerful people in the system. They're more powerful than police. They're more powerful than judges in terms of how their individual decisions impact the lives of the people in the system. What has surprised me about this work is how prosecutors don't recognize that. There's almost this lack of understanding sometimes that the most powerful people have the power so part of what I say to anyone is understand where you are the decision maker, understand where you do have that power because every step of the way you have the ability to make better decisions, you have the ability to be more fair. If that's all you can influence is the things that you touch and have direct power over. Then we're still going to be a lot better off than if we do nothing.
Tim Cynova:
A year or two ago I did a session with another colleague of mine, another white guy around anti-racism and how it shows up in organizations and what you can do. At the very end of the session, someone said "that was all really great stuff, but could you give us some tangible examples of that", which I thought, the entire hour is all tangible examples. I was remarking about this to one of my colleagues and she said, "I think people confuse tangible with impactful and impactful with visible." Adding pronouns to an email is tangible. Ending gender discrimination is impactful. Increasing gender diversity at an organization is visible. As you think about the work that you're doing and the approach the Justice Innovation Lab is taking, what resonates for you in those different distinctions?
Jared Fishman:
Obviously, everything we want to do to be real. We want it to be tangible and we wanted to be impactful and we want to affect people's lives for the better. One way you could look at it and if you're looking at reform, we could be looking at people who are incarcerated for 20 or 30 years, massive massively punitive punishments that affect a single person. Then we also have the problem of hundreds of thousands of people having really small sentences, but that are incredibly disruptive and punitive. Which problem is more important to address that really long sentence for someone who is wrongfully convicted or who is just receiving the punitive excess of the system, or is it the person who gets brought in on shoplifting and gets 15 days, but now has their total life upended? To me, they're both really important and some of them are going to be easier to fix, some are going to be harder to fix.
There's so much stuff that is easy to fix, but the putting together the coalition, the collaboration, the building momentum it's harder than it should be so we strive to be impactful. We strive for it to be visible. We strive for all of these things to take place. So much of what's happening in the criminal justice system is behind the scenes and is unseen, but yet has huge impacts on people's lives. At the end of the day, that's what we're looking at first, can we impact people's lives for the better? Can they get resources to deal with addiction and homelessness and poverty that they can't currently get because that's what we want? We want to be not just not punishing people. The absence of punishment and the reduction of the harm is important, but at the end of the day, we want to build something better.
Tim Cynova:
As you think about things you've read or watched, what resources would you suggest for people to take a look at if they want to understand more about the dynamics that you're exploring and operating in and the systems that are at play?
Jared Fishman:
There is a lot of great resources out there. Specifically, on the criminal justice system, I think Danielle Sered's book Until We Reckon is a great way to think about what is the purpose of punishment. What is the purpose of accountability and are we doing it right? I think understanding the historic racism and the system, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is great. Douglas Blackman book that you referenced the documentary of Slavery by Another Name. Thirteenth, the documentary, is a great explanation of the link from slavery to the modern-day criminal justice system. These are I think really important books. I think there's a lot of great work in moral psychology and behavioral psychology that I think to me has been really influential because we're talking about systems and we're talking about laws, but really at the end of the day, we're talking about human behavior and we want to encourage human behavior to be more pro-social and result in better outcomes collectively.
Books like Nudge the Behavioral Code, Jonathan Haidt's writing on morality and psychology, I find very enlightening. Then I read a lot about data science and probability and understanding algorithms and understanding what we can learn from these other fields. I read Moneyball back in the day. It was my first experience with data science. When my comms person said, "I think when you explain this as Moneyball for the criminal justice system, people can understand it better." So, that's what we're doing. We're Moneyball for the criminal justice system. If we can be using data to make companies more profitable and baseball teams win more games, certainly, we can use data in a similar way to make it more fair, more just, less punitive, and result in better outcomes for our communities because everyone wants safer communities.
Tim Cynova:
I find that one of the also really exciting things too, applying something from a different field, my background is in the cultural sector and I find the most intellectually stimulating things come from outside of the cultural sector and then get applied to how can I learn from Moneyball or how can I learn from IDEO? Then take that learning to be a part of creating something new and different within the sector or organization, which I work, and going back to this work is bespoke and there's no roadmap for it. Being open to where you can learn and how you can apply things differently in different ways I think is one of the really exciting things about the work and being part of this. What would you say to people who feel like they're outside of the criminal justice system saying, I hear you? I want to do something about this. What do I do as a citizen?
Jared Fishman:
I always say to people, all right, don't worry about the criminal justice system. If you don't have contact or connections to the criminal justice, that shouldn't be the problem that you're solving, but what are your strengths? What are your skillsets and thinking about how can I use that strength and that skillset to advance the cause of racial justice? Everyone has people they are connected to whether it be their employers or their friends, or their community groups. I think the mistake often is people who don't know anything about a particular field but realizing it's a problem now trying to go and work in this field that they don't know anything about, but you do know a lot about something and you do have skillset and it's about how can we apply that skill set to this problem?
A lot of the leadership coaches we work with have never worked in the criminal justice system, but they know to how to help leaders think through these problems so we brought leadership coaching in not really to talk about race, not to talk about criminal justice system, but just even thinking about best practices in leadership because prosecutors are leaders too. They have to lead their offices. They have to make these decisions for their cases.
Same goes with the designers. We've brought in designers who don't know anything about the justice system, but they have a process with which they can help us design better things and think about how do we build these things differently. I always tell people "get good at something and then once you're good at it, figuring out who needs that skillset" because half the people I've hired wasn't because I knew that I needed that thing. I met someone who had a strength and said, "oh yeah, oh, I can use curriculum development." I don't know anything about curriculum development, but we're teaching people things. I want to teach people how to do those things better so that's how my team grows.
I feel like I build my team and my organization differently than many people and organizations often build and I think it's the problem with the funding space that I'm in is that oftentimes people want to know what you're building in the end. The answer is, I don't know yet because I haven't put together that team. Part of what is great is if you go in and you try to solve a problem and you get people talking and you bring in the skillsets, you're going to come up with far better solutions than anything I ever could have come up with at the beginning, giving yourself the space to allow that to happen. Then when you see things that work and when you see things that are innovative, when you see things that are being effective, that's when you want to scale it. That's when you want to take it to more places.
Tim Cynova:
That's awesome. We're coming up on time. Where do you want to land the plane?
Jared Fishman:
One of the things that I think has been inspiring for me is that we're operating in a time where there is so much pessimism. We see so much dysfunction in our government. We see so much division between the left, the right in America, that it's easy to get hopeless sometimes. One of the things that's been really inspiring about our approach and taking it a little bit differently is that we bring together people on the right and the left, people who are impacted by these decisions and the people who are making them. What has been very hopeful to me is that I think people still can solve problems. I think the ability to solve our problems is there. We just need to do it with a little bit more empathy. We need to do it with a little bit more thoughtfulness. We need to give the time and the space to try to work out some of these solutions.
It is not easy. You can't solve these problems with a soundbite. It requires sitting down, having hard conversations, being open-minded. One of the things that I worry about the most is that we're losing our ability to be open-minded everyone across the country, right and left together and we do that to our own detriment. I think the work that we try to do is to reopen people's mind as to possibilities, to give them tools to solve problems again, and to come together. There's a lot of demand for this so more and more prosecutors, police departments are coming to us asking for help and saying, how can we help? The answer is we just need more money. There are a lot of good people out there that want to do this work. We're just trying to continue to raise money to make this possible because the best ideas we haven't developed yet. We're going to develop that in the communities that we work with that serve as incubators and hubs of ideas and innovation. They're going to find the solutions to solve the problems that are translatable across the country.
Tim Cynova:
Jared, I'll say you were the first incredibly seasoned prosecutor that I've ever interviewed. I will say I was slightly nervous throughout the prep and this entire conversation, knowing that I'm interviewing someone, went through your skills, but...
Jared Fishman:
I didn't go cross-examine on you. If I turned it on you and started asking the questions that's when maybe you should be scared.
Tim Cynova:
That's true. Right? Good thing I am the one who can click stop on the interview here. Thank you so much for the time today. Thank you so much for your perspective, your vulnerability, your sharing your experience. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Jared Fishman:
My pleasure. Thanks for bringing attention to these really important issues.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform or choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep11: Conversation with Ted & Rooney Castle (EP.64)
In episode eleven of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Ted Castle (Founder & President) and Rooney Castle (Vice President) of Rhino Foods, the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
September 3, 2022
In episode eleven of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Ted Castle (Founder & President) and Rooney Castle (Vice President) of Rhino Foods, the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
TED CASTLE is the owner and President of Rhino Foods, a certified B Corporation located in Burlington VT. Rhino employs 250+ employees and manufactures bakery style inclusions for ice cream manufacturers, and a variety of frozen desserts and snacks that are distributed in North America and Europe. Rhino Food’s Purpose is to “Impact the Manner in Which Business is Done” through its Financial, Customer and Supplier, Employee, and Community Principles. Rhino Foods and Ted have been recognized for their efforts with the Hal Taussig B the Change Award from B Lab, Beta Gamma Sigma Entrepreneurial Award. Vermont Small Businessperson of the Year, by the SBA, the Terry Ahrich Award for Socially Responsible Business by Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, Forbes Magazine’s List of Small Giants. Optimas award for vision in the workplace (past winners include UPS, Coors and 3M), Inc Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Special Recognition Award from the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. In 2018 the Rhino Foods Foundation was formed with the mission to "Spread Innovative Workplace Practices that Champion Employee Financial Stability and Make Good Business Sense" with an initial focus is to spread the Income Advance Program Rhino nationwide. Ted lives in Charlotte, Vermont with his wife Anne. Their two sons Ned and Rooney are presently living in Vermont.
ROONEY CASTLE Growing up, Rooney was continuously asked if he ever planned to join the family business. Time and time again, he would answer with a definitive “no”, as it would have impeded his plans to become the next Wayne Gretzky. However, as time went by and his hopes of becoming the next “Great One” slipped away, he began to learn more about Rhino Foods. As a child, Rooney only knew it was the home of the locally famous Chessters ice cream sandwich and the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream. As he began to invest both time and interest in the business his parents had created, Rooney discovered there was more to Rhino Foods than just delicious treats. His father’s passion for doing things the right way and understanding how a conscientious employer can impact employees’ lives outside of work is something to admire and emulate. It is this “do right” mentality, spread across all aspects of the business that attracted his to becoming a full-time rhino. In 2011, he started working at Rhino Foods on the production floor as a batter maker. The most important byproduct of his 8 months batter making was undoubtedly the relationships he developed with other rhinos and the knowledge he gained about what it takes to make their products. Rooney moved on to other roles giving him broad experience in other aspects of the business. This flexibility and exposure to a variety of learning opportunities is what makes him an engaged, versatile and happy rhino. Now the question he’s most frequently asked has become “when do you plan on taking over the reins of the family business?” to which he most politely responds, “I’m in no hurry.”
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Rooney Castle:
What I'm learning is, to get into this work really requires a system change. And these things don't happen overnight. It isn't a quick fix here, a quick this here, a training there. It really is looking at how you do things from a structural standpoint. And I think that we actually do have a lot of progress in some of these areas, and we just really need to sort of double down and look at them with this new lens that we're learning through and figure out how do we continue to drive progress in these areas.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. A podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast where my co-host, Lauren Ruffin and I, introduce the series and frame these conversations.
All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic not by white guys can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens. Others, inclusion and belonging. Still others, equity and impact.
Through these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging. And since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with.
On today's conversation, I'm joined by Ted and Rooney Castle. Ted is the founder and president of Rhino Foods. And Rooney is his vice president. Rhino is based in Northwestern, Vermont, along Lake Champlain. And while you might not recognize the company by name, I'll wager that one of their products. Rhino Foods is the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream. You can read more about Ted and Rooney in their bios included in the episode description. So in the interest of time, let's get going.
Ted and Rooney, welcome to the podcast.
Ted Castle:
Thank you.
Rooney Castle:
Thank you very much for having us.
Tim Cynova:
So let's just start with, how do you both introduce yourselves and the work that you do?
Ted Castle:
Well, this is Ted. I'll go first. I would probably introduce myself as the founder. So I started the business with my wife, Anne. I'm the president right now. A lot of people call me The Big Cheese. Our company, we often say, is Rhino Foods. We're a B corporation. And yes, we make a lot of business to business ingredients for cookie dough ice cream. We also do some co-packing for some national brands also.
Tim Cynova:
That's awesome. Rooney?
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. So Rooney Castle. I've been with Rhino for just over 10 years now. And so obviously as a family business, I grew up in the business, but I'm working about 10 years in full-time capacity. So currently as the vice president, but I started actually, I was planning just to work for a few months and make some money to go back to continue the traveling I was doing internationally and one thing led to another and I'm still here. So I started out actually in production. Worked for about a year, eight months to a year as a batter maker, making our product on the floor. And then transitioned through a variety of different roles to where I am today.
Tim Cynova:
So let's go with you both share the same last name. Are you related?
Ted Castle:
Yes, I'm the dad. He's the son. I think it's important to note that we're transitioning the business as far as the presidency. So Rooney's vice president now and I'm going to be stepping back a little bit, lot less day to day. And so he's going to be the president of the company and I'll be trying to figure out how to support him in a different leadership role than be here as much as I am right now.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. So I'm one of Ted and my mom and two sons. I have a brother who's three years older than me and he doesn't actively in the business, but does do a lot of work for us and with us in terms of some of our media making and sort of storytelling. So he does a lot of video production. And so any videos that we have or stories we want to tell through our website or other media channels, he comes in and collaborates with us on those. So although he's not in the business day to day, we get to work together fairly often.
Tim Cynova:
I've been excited for this episode, for this interview because, one, I admire company, two, I admire your product. I enjoy your product. But three, I've never talked to two people who are related. I've never talked to a father-son, as it relates to the topic that we sort have met around white guys talking about race and racism in the United States. I find that to be a really interesting dynamic to explore, that you both are related. So you're exploring racism, anti-racism, anti-oppression, both as family members and also through business. How has that felt like in practice?
Ted Castle:
We are part of a group called White Men for Racial Justice. We call it WMRJ. We've been doing that for about two years. And so quite frankly, I would say I'd be a classic example of a white male with privilege in many ways who hasn't had a lot of exposure to what I'm learning now. So most of my experience over the last two years is unlearning and learning. I've considered it one of the most valuable things I've done in the last two years, because I know that both Ned and Rooney are involved in the WMRJ. There's no way that I had the understanding background insights that I've learned and we're learning now and the journey we're on. So in many ways, I'm 69 years old and I wish I had started doing this years and years and years ago.
Rooney Castle:
Just for those who don't know, Ned is my brother. So he referenced the two of us. To sort of answer your question, it's a unique experience to do, I think, as an individual. For me personally, it's been a really interesting experience and it is unique, I think, to have both your really two family members. So not just my dad, but also Ned is also in the group. So to have them in the group and sort of have that opportunity to continue to have those discussions outside of our weekly calls and other work that we do, because it's hard not to have these conversations and these topics come up in whatever we're doing.
If it's at dinner together, if we're down on the pond skating, whatever it is, we find ourselves referencing the work and some of the conversations that we have in WMRJ. So I find that it's a unique opportunity to continue to practice having that as part of the conversation and the way that we're now starting to, at least I'll speak for myself, the way that I'm starting to view the world and the way I interact in the world. And so to have more partnership in that and support only helps me on that journey.
Tim Cynova:
I'll say I'm envious, because before my dad passed away, anytime race came up it was not an easy conversation. And so I've admired the work that you all are doing together and how this is really impacting or maybe changing the frame for how you work and both together with the organization. And maybe can we unpack that a little bit? What's it been like to be in WMRJ doing the work personally. And then professionally, what does it look like at Rhino Foods?
Rooney Castle:
I think of this work as very much a journey. I think that's what we all sort of talk about. And for me as well, I feel like I'm very much at the beginning stages of that journey, now recognizing that this is lifelong work and it goes beyond that. So as we sort of say in the group, "Prepare for a lack of closure. This isn't something we do for a month or two and then we've sort of got it figured out." That said, where I'm really starting is really, as Ted said, it's unlearning and relearning. So I find that a lot of the focus over the last year and a half, two years for me has been on me and my sort of the way I think about race and racism and white supremacy and how I fit into that as a piece into that puzzle. And I feel like the best thing I can do is really put that foundational work into unpacking and understanding my role in all of this and really educate myself and learn before I start to go out and try to take action.
I think as a white male we tend to have action biases. And I'll speak for myself again that I tend to had have action biases and sort of to, like, "Okay, here's a problem. I'm going to go solve it." And this process has really taught me that sometimes that's not the best thing, and particularly in this case when there's a lot of harm that you can do or I can do not knowing the impact of some of my actions. Even if they're well intended, impact of course is a lot different than intention.
So again, to answer your question, it's still very much in the development stage for me of how this impacts how I do my day to day work. It certainly impacts how I feel like I show up in the things that I notice. And I would like to say that over the next six to 12 months and beyond, we're really now getting into, "Okay, how does that start to shape the actual work that I do and the way I show up differently?" Of course, I think that has changed a little bit, but I'm trying pretty hard not to rush into solution and change more into observing, learning, noticing. And when I do notice something, try to unpack that a little bit more before I start jumping to conclusions about how I think it might be done differently or could be done differently.
Tim Cynova:
There must be attention from a business perspective where often if that thing's not working the way we need it to, let's fix it. Or if we know something's wrong, let's do something about it. But sitting with that before doing something might feel counterintuitive.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. And I think it's important to recognize we've been operating this way again, or I've been operating this way for, I'm 34, so for 34 years. Until you start to do this work, you don't see that something is wrong. The whole system, white supremacy, is so powerful because I can continue to live within the system and not notice that there is a problem or the advantages that I'm getting through this system. I don't see massive problems in front of me. Again, for myself within the business case, I'm starting to see areas where there's opportunities for improvement or where, "Hey, this might be an area where I need to dig in to really understand is there a problem here. And then as we discover those, now let's be smart and intentional about how do we address them."
So it's a little bit more nuanced to me than... Or I think I'm used to sort of like with businesses it's like, "Here's the problem or here's the situation. Let's go in and fix that." This is much more of a discovery uncovering mission. And then what we do with that is think it's still the part that I don't have answers to. And that's sort of where the rubber meets the road and the work that I'm sort of excited to try to figure out how do we actually start making some tangible impact.
Ted Castle:
So I would just put it in context a little bit. So Rhino is a manufacturer. We started hiring new Americans 25 years ago. And what did that look like? It was refugees from Bosnia. So Burlington, Vermont is a refugee resettlement area. So we have been, as a business, trying to understand what that looks like for 25 years. And now over the 25 years, we now have lots of new Americans from the Bosnia, all over Africa, Nepal, Iraq, now Afghanistan. So in a way, our cultural diversity here at Rhino is something we've been exploring and working with for a long time. We decided to try to be the best in the state of Vermont for a place to come as a new American. So what does that look like? It takes a lot of practice. And so this idea of diversity and inclusion for us is very much a part of who we are in the programs and policies that we have at Rhino.
What WMRJ has done for me is have a little bit different lens towards a systemic and structural racism. But as a company in our programs, especially around our people and culture practices, we've been dealing with a lot of people that most people would consider the most vulnerable people in our society. So we're dealing with homelessness, addiction, all kinds of economic situations. So we've been dealing with economic inclusion and diversity and also cultural. So we're trying to... I believe Rooney and I are trying to get our arms around more of the structural and systemic to make sure the things that we're doing are helpful.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. And I think the work that we've done with the WMRJ has given me a different lens in which to sort of look at how we're doing things. So I would certainly have said two years ago I think very good at the work we do around diversity and inclusion. Now, I still think we're doing the right things, but I think it gives us an opportunity to look at it in a different light and see are there things that we may not have seen before that aren't big blaring acts of racism, but are policies and practices truly anti-racist. I think that's a shift that I'm seeing for myself personally, is not seeing these intentional sort of blaring issues, but saying, "Okay, where are these areas where we could be more anti-racist and what does that really look like and what would that really mean for us at Rhino?" So that to me is the big shift that the WMRJ group has helped me discover.
Tim Cynova:
You guys are doing some really cool things around people and culture, inclusive hiring, the Income Advance Program, things that are really at the forefront of how you can work with people in sort of their whole selves, and also unbiased certain parts of the workplace in a way that sort are really entrenched in. Rooney, you're talking about sort the exciting to really think about how we can do this differently so that we can really center other values that... Or de-center white guys and center other values in and how we structure our organization. So I'm wonder if you could talk a little bit about both of those programs, and really your focus overarching of belonging. And that's, as my understanding, the window through which you start to see the work manifest itself at Rhino.
Ted Castle:
We have a day called Rhino Day where we take the whole company off site and to spend a day together. We have 250 employees, three shifts. So it's a really exciting valuable day. I think it was four years ago, the whole theme was belonging. So our director of people and culture came up with that instead of it called Diversity, Inclusion Day or something. And it really brought home what was important to everyone from belonging. And Ned actually did a video and just spontaneously asked people what does it mean. It's some of the most basic things about respect and showing up and having a voice and feeling like you're part of something. We work really hard at that at Rhino. That's part of our DNA and who we are.
Some of the programs you mentioned, Tim, around inclusive hiring, we started that probably more intentionally three years ago, four years ago. And that really means everyone is allowed an opportunity to come and work at Rhino. We don't do any background checks. The only exclusion would be third degree sexual offenders. So for our frontline workers, basically, if they show up and they treat people with respect or willing to learn, they have a job here.
We also do what we call a resource coordinator. We have someone from the United Way here, 40 hours a week. All she does is connect people to services. We're trying to help people have the best life they can outside of work so they come in the best shape to work. We're trying to have things happen at work to send them back home. So we call it sort of the inside out approach. We believe it is to try to help people bring their best selves to work. So our programs and our ability to no questions asked, borrow up to a thousand dollars in 24 hours, not from Rhino for [inaudible 00:15:33].
Financial institution is another example. We learned that there were a lot of people whose lives would spiral out of control because they don't have $500 in savings. They have a flat tire, they can't get to work, they can't get their kids to work and they lose their job. Again, all these programs started from a business perspective. They all make good business sense. They're also helping people. I think the new thing that WMRJ, as we've alluded to here, is we didn't necessarily have that lens of late supremacy on it, which I think we can do better in all these programs with that lens.
Tim Cynova:
For those listening who hear about really great initiatives, well-established initiatives, how did those start? How did inclusive hiring or the Income Advance Program start or anything else that you're sort of working where you're centering the people here? What did that look like at the very beginning?
Rooney Castle:
We were running a business here so these do come out of business needs. So when we talked about the Income Advance Program, the idea there was, we had some of our people and culture team and supervisors saying, "We're losing a lot of our workforce not because they're not good workers, not because they don't want to be here, but because they have these situational emergencies that come up."
And what we really realized was that a lot of folks that work here are coming out of generational poverty. And so we attended some trainings and learned a lot about how folks who are in those situations, the list I had just said, from these situational emergencies that come up, typically that require some sort of financial support or backing to sort get yourself out of it. We're finding that a lot of people when those situations fall through or daycare closes or you don't have childcare and you don't have a place to turn, a family member to go to, when put into the choice of support the family or show up on time to work, they make the choice of supporting the family, which of course nobody can blame them for.
As a manufacturer, we can only be so understanding in those situations because we still have to run the business. So again, people were losing their jobs not because they weren't good workers, but because of situations that came up. And so it really came out of that need that we said, "Let's try to fill this gap around financial insecurity that we're seeing." And therefore, that's how the Income Advance Program was born. Inclusive hiring, as we sort of call it open hiring. We had heard a lot about it from different B Corp partners, specifically Greyston Bakery. It was something we were more informally doing here, but really formalized over the last few years as Ted mentioned. And again, that came out of the business need of we need access to people in a fairly competitive market. And so why are we excluding all these people who potentially are great workers just because of something they may have done in the past and we're judging them, prejudging them without even knowing them or their context or their history.
So by opening that door, there's a business reason. There's also, we believe is just sort of the right thing to do because we are recognized that a lot of the systems in place are biased. And I can speak for myself, I know a lot more now about the criminal justice system and some of the biases and injustices that exist within there and the structural systems that are putting people behind bars. And therefore, when they come out, having an opportunity for them to have access to work is a really, really important step in theirs getting back on track. Removing any potential bias from our systems was a really important step in sort of the work that we're trying to do now around becoming more of an anti-racist organization.
Tim Cynova:
What did the challenges look like for you? You mentioned sort of manufacturing, we should also mention for those listing in the future, we're recording this two years into a global pandemic. What if some of the challenges been like as you're living these values and trying to create systems and structures and processes and language around this work at Rhino?
Ted Castle:
I think it's hard to remember life before COVID. We're now into two years and we are an example of a business that our demand for our product went up. People were eating more cookie dough ice cream. We had 25% of our workforce not here for very legitimate reasons. We also were experiencing a lot of the office people could work from home, get a paycheck. They could still do their job. And the undesk workers, meaning shipping, receiving, maintenance, production, sanitation, to get paid they got to be here. They got to be putting themselves quite frankly at the beginning of the pandemic and even today in maybe as a more unsafe condition. So I think that brought up a lot of emotions at Rhino, but we worked through that. I think it's an attitude.
We want to impact the manner which business has done. So to me, one of the best examples we had is we knew that that was "unfair" for some people to work from home and unfair for people to have to come here. So every way we supported the people who were coming here. We made sure social distancing, mask wearing. We did everything we could do based on CDC recommendations. We also did things like we did a resiliency supply. If you came in, we went around to local restaurants. Once a week had people, it was almost like a little grocery store here where we'd hand out and thank people for coming to work. So again, these aren't necessarily brilliant ideas or the perfect thing for anyone, but it is the intentional effort to try to figure out what's the right thing to do. And in those situations, we were really struggling to figure out what's right, so we put time and effort into it.
Tim Cynova:
I think that's one of the really interesting things because some of the work that you've done, some of what you've built at Rhino was not built centering anti-racism. However, when you look at it through an anti-racism lens, you realize, "Oh, actually that is helpful." Inclusive hiring is so futuristic, I think, when you think about hiring in general. And as companies are trying to retrofit current hiring processes while centering inclusion and equity, I think Rhino, a great example is to be able to look at "This is something that can help inform how we might want to continue to iterate on it." But it certainly wasn't created from that way. The Income Advance Program is another thing. It wasn't created that way, but some of what you're detailing as sort of the business case for that who's most impacted by all of those things on the list that were reasons to start the Income Advance Program.
And so I think that's really inspirational, I think, to other white guys, other white leaders in particular who are listening, who will be listening to it and thinking like, "How can I think through the things that I have? Or what things do I have right now, the language, the policies, the practices that support this work? And which do I have right now that I need to actually work on immediately because it's actively harming people?" And so I love that there are things that you have here, but at the same time that you point out Rooney, it's like we're constantly learning.
Ted Castle:
I think that's what I'm trying to think about in this WMRJ at work. And that's why I got stuck the other day. It's like we're doing all these things now. We're doing them and we do need to do more. We do have to have that lens, but all these things are helping. Because when we're really talking about the structural systemic racism, the people that sort are the most vulnerable or the most challenged due to their situation is because a lot of these things, well, these are some of the programs that help them stay at work and get a job and have an opportunity and move forward.
Rooney Castle:
Again, to your point, I think, is well said, that we've done a lot of this work without thinking this is about breaking down or dismantling white supremacy or addressing racism in the workplace. What I think a lot of the programs and policies that have been in place is... What's in Rhino's DNA and has been forever is this concept of supporting your people. And a lot of that comes with, we talk a lot about mutual trust and respect here. So everything we do goes through sort of that filter of what we almost call like our do right filter. Do right because it's the right thing to do.
Now, again, I think as a white guy with a bunch of privilege, the right thing to do for me might be very different and that's what I need the work to examine. But fundamentally across the business, when we are putting something into place, everybody, and typically it's not just Ted and I, it's more sort of grassroots and from other people who are actually living and experiencing this work. They're looking at it like, "How do we do this so that it includes everybody and then it's built off mutual trust and respect?" And I think that's what's helped us get to where we are today.
The opportunity now, as I started to try to say earlier, is how do we now look back at what we've done, where we've come from, what do we have with that anti-racist lens and say, "Okay, great. We're actually doing pretty darn well at this without having done this intentionally. But where are opportunities for improvement? How do we really call some of this stuff out and examine it and make sure that what we think is happening is the lived experiences of those that are really impacted by these programs? Specifically the BIPOC people that we have working for us."
So I think that's a little bit of the shift. It's not like, "Okay, now we're here. How do we start this work?" It's, how do we take the learnings that we're gaining sort of every day through the work we're doing and look back and apply them to really what we've become so far and how does it continue to shape into the future?
Tim Cynova:
Well, what do you both see as those opportunities for improvement? What's on your wish list or your immediate list in sort of near term?
Rooney Castle:
I don't have the perfect list, but one thing that I would like to try to figure out is how do we bring some of these conversations more to the forefront and make them more a part of the conversation, because Rhino does talk a lot about how do we be more inclusive, how do we have more belonging here. We do talk about our diversity, but I don't think we talk about... Or I know we don't talk about structural racism and white supremacy. We don't frame it in there because that's often triggering for white people because of white fragility and all the other sorts of reasons.
So how do we start to weave some of that conversation and some of the learnings that we're getting external to Rhino through WMRJ, how do we start folding that into some of the work we're doing here so that it's part of the conversation and that we can bring others into that conversation in a non-triggering way, in a welcoming way so that we can hopefully have more partners within our organization who are part of this work and can help us really steer Rhino over the next three to five, 10, whatever it is years?
Ted Castle:
The two things that I'm thinking of is for the last three years, really, we're trying to bring more voice to everyone. So typically years ago when we'd have a company meetings or we'd have our Rhino Days or whatever, it was mostly the leadership team. And then more and more, we're starting to give other people louder voices and be part of speaking out. So I think that is part of that background thinking when you grow up like I have is, like, "Yes, I should be the one talking. Yes, I should be the one leading. Yes, I should be the one representing Rhino," versus letting other people with their life experiences maybe can bring more light into what it means for inclusive hiring or some of the things. So I know that's one thing that we're starting we want to do more of.
The other thing that I'm very concerned about is that it's easy for us to have policies and practices that we think address some of these things. But how well are we really on that individual frontline, worker to worker level or supervisor level? So how well do our supervisors understand white supremacy and structural racism because they're dealing with it every day here? So if you said, "How many people out of our 250 employee workforce are new Americans?" It's about 30%. We do break down percentages of our population and we have a lot of Black employees and people of color and BIPOC people. So how are we doing really day to day, I think we need to find out more about that. And we do employee surveys and engagement surveys, but I think we can get much deeper into the organization to figure out really how are we doing. That's what I'd like to be able to stand up and say, "We know." Whereas if you really ask me, I'd say, "I hope, but I'm not sure" in many instances.
Tim Cynova:
I often think of that as kind of a balance sheet approach where you might not like what's on your balance sheet, you might not like your cash position, but it is what it is. And that it allows you to do something about it if you want. And oftentimes, that's seemingly a giant hurdle for white guys to even get to, like just to see who do we have working here because you're afraid of what you're going to find out. I mean, it feels kind of like you can't do it. It's a personal reflection of your own ability to do something or your own values and then you feel sort of stymied in what's next, then what do I do about it.
Ted, you gave me a tour of the building before we started in, talking about sort of inclusivity. I saw the wall where you have all of the employees over the years who have been nominated by their fellow coworkers around the values that you have as an organization. And then the two years prior, get to decide the current years employees about who's representing those values. You mentioned that it's a surprise to you even because you're not involved with that. It really resonates with me from a way that the employees start to say, "What does this value mean for us?" And what does this really mean, it's not words on the wall. And then get to demonstrate that by nominating and selecting the people who they feel espouse those values. And I think that's really a wonderful way of making those living values in a way too that feels like people have much more agency in how those show up in the workplace. And as we talk about things like white supremacy culture and decolonizing organizations, it feels like once again some of those early steps towards having a culture that is engaged in owning that.
Ted Castle:
Yeah, the Wall of Fame that you're referring to, it honors the employee that exemplifies one of our principles in their finance, employee, community, or customer supplier and then vision. What's so interesting about that is when you look at the wall, there's so many things you can notice right away. Number one, it's got everyone's picture. Number two, it's gotten something, a paragraph or two about why that person was selected. Number three is you can see the diversity. It's not the leadership team. It's so deep in our organization. You can see new Americans, you can see English language learners. You can see people from all departments. When you look at that wall, you realize how meaningful it is to win that award because you're nominated by your fellow employees and you're selected by your fellow employees, the last two years winners and the leadership of the company has nothing to do with it. That's sort of a true representation of trying to trust and respect and have people belong.
I think every business needs a few of those things that really speak to that. And for us, that Wall of Fame, just right in the main entrance of the building, represents that. It doesn't mean everybody's got to do it that way, but it sure is an example of us trying,
Tim Cynova:
Well, we've talked about a couple times already that doing the work doesn't mean it's perfect or that it's all, but that it's a journey. I wonder if you could offer your reflections on a quote from a colleague of mine. I was talking with Courtney Harge after I did a session about anti-racism in a workplace and got all the way to the very end and someone said, "That was really great. That whole hour was really great, but could you offer some tangible things that you've done?" And I thought, "Where have I failed this group?" Because the whole hour was tangible things. And she remarked, "I think people confused tangible with impactful. And impactful with visible. Adding pronouns to an email signature is tangible. Ending gender discrimination is impactful. Increasing gender diversity at an organization is visible."
We've talked about things that probably fall in all of these buckets during our time together. But as you think about those sort of buckets and your own approach to the work and where you struggle and what you're doing well, what resonates for you in that quote and those distinctions? Or you can just go a completely different direction and pull up something else. Best of interest.
Rooney Castle:
I think that's a really insightful comment and what it makes me think of it first is that even my own desire for something tangible. So especially in this work, I think of the time after the murder of George Floyd when a lot of people were sort of jumping and saying, "Well, our company needs to do something." You could see countless examples of people doing things. I think a lot of them, they were focused on sort of tangible or visible. At Rhino, we didn't really quite know what to do.
I think the worst thing you can do is do nothing because you're not sure what to do so you get sort of caught in this feeling of it's too overwhelming and too complicated, therefore we don't do anything. But I think what we've tried to do is step back and say, "Sure. Could we put out a public statement? Could we quickly get somebody in here and do an anti-racism training?" Like sure. And are those good things? Yes. But at the same time, I think that my concern with those is what is the intent and impact of those and really how deep and meaningful are they towards creating change.
So I think what we try to do is focus more on how do we zoom out and look at the work that we're doing around open hiring, inclusive hiring, supporting people through the resource coordinator we have here, our Income Advance Program. To me, those start to be more impactful and less... It doesn't feel as maybe as flashy or sort of quick as like, "Oh, there's some reaction to something that's happening." But I think what I'm trying to get at is, to get into this work really requires a system change. These things don't happen overnight. It isn't a quick fix here, a quick this here, a training there. It really is looking at how you do things from a structural standpoint. I think that we actually do have a lot of progress in some of these areas and we just really need to sort of double down and look at them with this new lens that we're learning through and figure out how do we continue to drive progress in these areas.
Ted Castle:
So when I heard this quote, I don't think I understood it, number one. When I hear visible, I think about that if you're successful, you can see it and feel it in an organization. So if we walk through Rhino and any visitor comes here, within 15 minutes, I want them to see and feel our culture. And it's not by having something written on a wall. But if it is written on the wall, they keep bumping into examples and they walk out and they see it and feel it. I'm a visual guy. And then I think that visuals obviously are just one part. They have to be impactful. So if we have programs that impact people's lives, we should be able to demonstrate that with data, we should be able to show you that last year or in the last 10 years, there's been $560,000 borrowed in the Income Advance Program in thousand dollars increments. 93% of the people start a savings program. So to me, there's data behind impactful. And then visual is very much of a culture and feeling of which quite frankly is a big part of what we're talking about here.
Tim Cynova:
We're three white guys talking about racism as it relates to life in the workplace. We've had a lot of conversations as a group over the past 18 months to two years though. And there's been laughter and there's been hard work and it's also been energizing. I'm wondering for both of you, where do you find energy and where do you find it energizing in the work? Or do you?
Rooney Castle:
I think I find the energy and the motivation to stick with it in the recognition of the importance of it, especially as a white male with all sorts of privilege across the spectrum of privileges. I carry quite a few of them. The most obvious example is I'm sitting here taking over a business that was started by my family. So the amount of privilege and opportunity I have is immense. And that comes with mixed emotions for me, especially as I'm doing more of this work. It just seems unfair on so many levels. And at the same time, rather than get stressed out or hold myself back because of that or say, "Oh, I don't deserve this. Or how come it's me?" I'm trying to frame it in a sense of, "Okay, with this privilege and this opportunity, how can I do the best job that I can in lots of different ways for the business, but also now, as I'm learning more about anti-racism work from WMRJ?"
So my motivation comes from as I learn more about what I have been blind to for so long, it feels like it's my obligation to make sure that I'm taking that seriously and I'm finding ways through my circles, in my spheres of influence and my privilege, to impact this business because I know this business impacts hundreds and thousands of people's lives throughout the course of its history and how it's operating. So there's a lot of sort pressure at feeling like how do I deliver on that. How do I carry forward what Ted and Anne, my parents, have started to keep it as a family business within this community, privately owned, still doing all the great things that I think we're doing. That's a lot of pressure. And then I'm trying to layer this, and now it adds almost more pressure to that. I try to take that as a positive of that positive pressure to motivate me to really want to make that change.
Tim Cynova:
Rooney, that's reminiscent that prompt we've meditated on during WMRJ. How do I X in an anti-racist way? How do I walk the dog in an anti-racist way? How do I come to a new community an anti-racist way? And I really think sort of how do I take over a family business in an anti-racist way? Sort of how you unpack that sort of speaks to that intention and how you want to do this differently than how you might have 10 years ago.
Rooney Castle:
Especially because I keep coming back to that concept of, I think to truly dismantle white supremacy and to sort of live an anti-racist life, I recognize that that means that I'm going to have to make sacrifice because I think it's easy to do the... You can conceptualize the work, but really when it comes down to it, it means making certain sacrifices. And so I don't know necessarily what that means within the frame of this business and this business transition, but you're very much right. That's on my mind is how do I, your X here, take over a family business in an anti-racist way. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm motivated to figure out what it is and how I'm going to do it.
Tim Cynova:
Ted, what energizes you or motivates you in this work?
Ted Castle:
I like Rooney's answer of the importance is what motivates me. It doesn't energize me to show up. To show up is more like I'm committed. It's important I need to be there. I end up energized by the end because seeing the people involved, hearing what other people have to say, having me think about it maybe differently than I did, it always seems after an hour and a half that it was worth showing up. But it's pretty hard work. And it also is something that I believe if you don't show up a lot, then you sort of fall away like most things. So energize is a weird word for me. I'm committed to the work is what I would say, say. And I'm energized at the more I learn, the more I feel confident that I'm going to be making more right steps than wrong steps.
Tim Cynova:
Well, gentlemen, we are coming up on time. How do you want to land the plan on our conversation?
Rooney Castle:
For me again, I think it sort of feels strange to be having this conversation in a public forum like this. We're not public right now, but knowing it's going to be. It's recorded to be shared. Because I'm trying hard not to feel like I know, because I don't feel like I know what I'm talking about frankly. It's like I'm so new to this work. There are so many people who know a lot more about this than I do and have been impacted by this work and their lived experiences that it just feels strange to be having this conversation and speaking about it like I know what I'm talking about. And I think that's part of the journey, is just recognizing I'm not an expert and being very open to learning and to... Yeah, I don't know. I can tell I'm sort of struggling with it because the point is, I'm on this journey and this almost feels premature for me to be speaking about it externally like this.
Tim Cynova:
That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do the podcast, this mini series of podcasts, because we're all on a journey. We're all white guys on a journey. Two years ago, five years ago, being able to share stories, it's messy. "This is where I am. I'm building the plane while I'm flying it with others." I wanted to serve as a resource for others who are on that journey as well and also highlight a whole host of resources by not white guys for this work. So I think that that's one of the aims with having our conversations.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. I think the reason, I'll again speak for myself, that I said yes to doing this is because it's part of the process of taking steps. So my first reaction when I saw your request to do this was like, "Hell no. I don't feel ready to have that conversation." I'd love to have this conversation with the two of you with a beer and then have it go nowhere beyond there except for between us and sort of think of it as a practice. But to have it shared publicly seems a little bit scary to me, but I think that's what some of this work is all about, is I need to get uncomfortable. I need to be willing to make mistakes. I'm sure I've said things here that are just wrong or didn't land right. And so for those, I do apologize, but that's part of this process.
So I saw saying yes to this as one of those small wins that we talk about in WMRJ of how do you sort show up... With your sphere of influence as how do you have small wins that are driving you towards a more anti-racist way of life, then this for me was a small win to sort of have the courage to say yes to do it. So thank you for creating that space and opportunity for me to do so.
Tim Cynova:
Ted, you get the last word.
Ted Castle:
I would answer similar to Rooney. Without repeating him, I would add Rhino has a purpose to impact the manner which business has done. We're a B Corp and their mission is business as a force for good. So the reason why white guys like us with privilege own businesses is for lots of reasons. So it's our job to do the best we can with the position, the power that we have, to make the changes that need to be made. We can only do so much with what we know and we just need to be trying. So for me, the plane is not even close to landing, but at the same time for us to step back as privileged white males that own a business, privately held business, employ 250 people to work really hard, our job is to create a team and be a great business.
I believe business has the opportunity to make more social change, positive or negative than any other place. For me, it's always been about the journey at Rhino and figuring out how to do the right thing. So this is just part of us trying. I find that there's a lot of shame and guilt. At the same time, I don't ever want that to hold me back because I think a lot of people stop when that happens. So I'm okay with making mistakes as long as people know that I understand that I will make mistakes. But at the same time, it's about the effort for me.
Tim Cynova:
Well, Ted, Rooney, our time has flown by. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your insight, for your vulnerability, for the struggles, the challenges, and thanks for being on the podcast.
Ted Castle:
Great.
Rooney Castle:
Thank you very much for having us.
Ted Castle:
Thank you, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep10: Conversation with Kit Hughes (EP.63)
In episode ten of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look Listen, a consulting company working at the intersection of creativity, data, and technology.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
June 23, 2022
In episode ten of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look Listen, a consulting company working at the intersection of creativity, data, and technology.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
KIT HUGHES is a typical technology entrepreneur. He dropped out of college to start a company (it failed), spent a period of time homeless (by choice), and became an overnight success (slowly). Eventually, Kit returned to school as a two-time research fellow at the University of Georgia leading experimental technology research projects exploring mobile computing and connected devices. He credits his business smarts to his studies in strategy and innovation at MIT Sloan. Kit co-founded Look Listen in 2007 as a mash-up of a digital studio and a consulting company working at the intersection of creativity, data, and technology. Look Listen grew to have offices in Atlanta, Denver, and Portland with three centers of excellence: Brand Experience, Performance Media, and Marketing Automation. He has worked with a variety of B2B and B2C brands across multiple touchpoints: Anheuser-Busch, Arrow, BP, Char-Broil, Coca-Cola, Flextronics, GE, NCR, Philips, and Steve Harvey. Under Kit’s leadership as CEO, Look Listen was recognized as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the US by hitting #408 on the Inc 500 in 2015—staying on the list three years in a row—and has been in the top 100 fastest growing companies in Atlanta three years in a row, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle Pacesetter Awards. Find out more about Kit here.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi all, it's Tim. Before we launch into the episode, I wanted to let you know about a companion resource we've developed in tandem with our White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism Series. It's a study guide that includes questions, specific to each episode, that can aid in deeper reflection.
Tim Cynova:
In particular, if you're a white guy listening to these episodes, I invite you to download it and journal your reflections. The guide is linked in the episode description and also on the main series page, on workshouldntsuck.co. Thanks so much for listening and onto the episode.
Kit Hughes:
White people don't think about themselves as white people. White people think about themselves as people, and they don't understand that everyone else thinks about themselves, as fill in the blank people. Black people. Asian people. We don't have any qualifiers onto the words we use to describe ourselves. We call ourselves Americans and we call the people that were here before us Native Americans and I'm excited to see that there is more of a understanding now of indigenous populations.
Kit Hughes:
But the thing I want to really say too, that ties into that, is that it's a journey for white people to understand that they are white people and it's a self-reflection and that's really uncomfortable. Anybody that's gone through therapy understands that it is uncomfortable to examine yourself and examine the blind spots that you have and that's why therapists refer to it as, the work, and I love your language around calling this, the work, as well. The deep feeling that I have is, oh, this is going to take a while.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini-series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism.
Tim Cynova:
While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out Episode 54 of our podcast, where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I introduce the series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co.
Tim Cynova:
In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens. Others inclusion and belonging. Still others, equity and impact. Through these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations, that this was work for white guys to be doing.
Tim Cynova:
We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging, and since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with.
Tim Cynova:
On today's conversation, I'm joined by Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look, Listen, a consulting company working at the intersection of creativity, data, and technology. You can read more about Kit in his bio, linked in the description for this episode. So in the interest of time, let's get going.
Tim Cynova:
Kit, welcome to the podcast.
Kit Hughes:
Well, thank you. Welcome to you as well.
Tim Cynova:
Thanks so much.
Kit Hughes:
How many people have actually welcomed you to your own podcast?
Tim Cynova:
You might actually be the first one who has welcomed to be the podcast. So yeah, I appreciate that.
Kit Hughes:
I'm happy to be with you, Tim. I really am.
Tim Cynova:
In our green room, we talked about how we've had conversations about this topic over the years, but haven't talked about recently, so probably we haven't connected in about a year or so, so really interested to hear how things are evolving for you personally and professionally.
Tim Cynova:
Before we dive in, how do you typically introduce yourself and your work these days?
Kit Hughes:
You know, I'll start with, after I get over the claustrophobic panic that I have when somebody asks me what I do, or how do I describe what I do, it's a panic because I have to like put myself in a box and I don't like that. I can feel sort of cagey around that. So after I get over that, I usually say that I'm a CEO that believes in business as a spiritual pursuit. I'm a self-taught designer. I'm an underdog investor. I'm an aspiring philosopher-king. And then I always throw in that I'm a lapsed musician, so that if the audience of people that are asking me, "Tell me what you do or who you are," that there's maybe an angle in all those things that gives people a point entry.
Tim Cynova:
So we did a session together for the Conscious Capitalism Community and I was looking at your bio and I realized, we like grew up right down the road from each other, both musicians, both white guys, but went in really different directions in our careers and then somehow met up decades later. You were, by far, a more successful musician and probably a cooler one than I was, because again, I played trombone and you were like a rock musician.
Kit Hughes:
We also maybe even look like cousins too. We both wear black rimmed glasses and let our hair do its own thing. And so I think the only difference is I wear all black, but I think that we could look like we're actually family members.
Tim Cynova:
That's true.
Kit Hughes:
Distant family members, at least.
Tim Cynova:
Very much so.
Kit Hughes:
Yeah.
Tim Cynova:
So when we first met, we were at the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit, and you had asked a question in one of the sessions around the community's commitment or the intersection with the work around diversity and inclusion. And after the session, I was like, got to connect with that person. And we did. And I'm curious, are diversity inclusions, the lenses you're using today for the work, has that changed in how you're approaching the lenses you use for this?
Kit Hughes:
I'll say that I can't help but be the white guy that speaks up in the crowd of mostly white people to say, "What about diversity, equity and inclusion?" Or calling out the fact that, Hey, in that session specifically, there was talk about Conscious Capitalism and I love that organization. We're sponsors of the organization. We're chapter members. But that question that I asked and raised my hand about was tied to, we can't separate what we believe in conscious capitalism, or even a pursuit of being more conscious beings, when we don't include the fact that we have otherness going on and that we have separation, systemic separation, from other humans, whether that be because of age, because of background, because of skin color, because of religious beliefs.
Kit Hughes:
I think I've always felt like since a very, very early age, that was a live wire inside of me, if you will. That nothing felt like an energy source more than when someone was treated as an other, or when there was a homogenous huddling together that just didn't feel right to me. And so I think throughout my life, it's expressed itself in different ways. And you know, where I am now, like even referring to myself as an underdog investor, part of my work is I truly, truly, truly believe that a capitalism and capitalistic structures have alienated people that are not white and other characteristics, but that is a core characteristic.
Kit Hughes:
And so when I talk about being an underdog investor, I have seen the tremendous economic potential, both for generating wide economic potential inside of a city or a community, but then also the economic potential to change things like generational wealth and reverses wealth gaps through entrepreneurship, through building businesses.
Kit Hughes:
And so, yeah, part of my work in this season of my life, has also expressed itself in a different way than it did when I was in art school or when I was growing up, so it very much is still sort of core to who I am.
Tim Cynova:
Can you unpack a little bit of those early days around, you talk about there's a live wire in you, but how did you realize this was something?
Kit Hughes:
I'd like to first say and I may start every answer with, I'd like to say first, or first and foremost, because I feel like you have to answer these really super sensitive questions sometimes with caveats.
Kit Hughes:
I love where I was from. I actually just figured out last week, speaking with my parents, that I'm a sixth generation Kentuckian and so our roots run incredibly deep in Kentucky. Not in any kind of grandstanding way. It wasn't like I have a family member that was a state Senator or anything like that. We were farmers. We were community members. So I incredibly value where I'm from and the environment that I was raised in and had tremendously loving parents and grandparents.
Kit Hughes:
But what I saw in starting in childhood, we were in a incredibly non-diverse community. Very, very white and this is not, I'm making some sort of generalizations here and I'm not talking about my specific family members or whatever but what I observed was, people talking about people that weren't white as other and extrapolating characteristics of the one person of color that they knew, to an entire population and creating this monolith of understanding and I just saw that as wrong. And that was kind of at an intellectual level.
Kit Hughes:
But then when it got down to this like really superhuman level, the group of kids that I kind of ran with when I was really young, one of them being of African American heritage, and he was sort of rare in our community, and we grew up together. We all played basketball together. We didn't feel separate in that childhood. And then when you reach those teenage years, to have one of the white friends that was part of that circle, to join the Klan, to join the Ku Klux Klan, was stunning to me. To basically say, "How in the world could you have grown up with this person and been so close and how could I be so different from you when we've had very similar sort of childhoods?"
Kit Hughes:
I didn't know how to handle that information, so I got a little punk rock about it. I kind of got into arguments with Klan members and on the verge of these fist fights and the ways that you handle things when you're a teenager. And so the first day of my senior year, I made a T-shirt that said "Racism sucks," on it and wore it to school and the authoritarian figure at the high school said, "Turn your shirt inside out. It says sucks." And it's like, wow. You're telling me that I can't criticize racism because you don't like the word sucks. It showed me how different I was and how I saw the world. It also started to, I think, teach me how I need to approach the conversation.
Kit Hughes:
So going off to college, I went to art school, and I started to see that this live wire in me wanted to express itself through my artwork. I started to just experiment with different ways of dialogue. I started to make artwork about... And this was the mid-nineties. I was starting to realize that this was going to be a challenge in my life and so I did this project called The History of White People in America and the small Christian-based college that I went to, did not like that. And while I had support from a few people, they really shut down the project. They put pressure on me through my peers not to do this project, and it wasn't criticizing them directly. It was trying to open a conversation in a dialogue format.
Kit Hughes:
I was like, "Okay. Well, this is not going well." And so I dropped out of that school and I started my first company. It failed and then I went back to school to a much bigger state school and I was like, all right, well, I'm going to try this again. At that point I had been in business for a couple of years. I had taught myself design. I had felt like I was an adult now. I was allowed to make this kind of artwork. And so I did this project called Colored and that project was shut down and that project was in 2002, I think. 2002, 2003.
Kit Hughes:
And so I was told that white people can't make work about racism. White people can't make work about race issues and there was this nervousness to white people making art about this and my work was specifically tied to white and Black race relations. And so that was a real turning point for me when they shut that down. And then I realized, "Okay, I've got to be more..." Well, first off I need power. I need power because if I have money and power, I can make whatever artwork I want because those people in power told me that I couldn't. So that was when I decided I need to also repackage the way that I talk about race relations and I need to go and get money in power, so that I can make whatever kind of artwork I want. And that's when I started to go more heavily into business and realize that's the avenue by which to get money in power so that I can rent my own gallery, or rent my own building and show my work.
Kit Hughes:
And so I started a journey in which I became less combative with the type of artwork that I produced. I was able to speak at the International Child Art Olympiad on the Mall in Washington, a few years after that project called Colored gut shut down, and this was children from all over the world came and on the National Mall, I was invited to speak And so I gave a talk, talking about color.
Kit Hughes:
I said, to summarize it, I just talked about how color. Whatever you do, color. Bring color into this world. Be proud of your color. Be, kind of this whole thing, and I realized that, okay, that's actually the position that I need to take a little bit more of, to make sure that people can intersect with my own drive around reconciling these really problematic beliefs about people being other. So that's a lot to take in, but I wanted to take on that journey because it was kind of that journey from a spark in me, all the way to me understanding that I needed to actually interface with people publicly kind of differently and my journey to say, I need to figure out how to actually do more of that.
Tim Cynova:
A couple of things resonate. The racism sucks and reminds me, which of the people who, whether they hear Work Shouldn't Suck are like, "Well, I couldn't wear that button." And we're like, "So you're like the pro work sucks or should suck." It's like, it's so strange to be met with that reaction.
Tim Cynova:
The history of white people is interesting. I feel there's some direct correlation to the conversations that are happening right now in the country around critical race theory and in schools, in workplaces, the conversations that as we know, started to be more prevalent after George Floyd's murder in May of 2020 and now what's being met. Organizations starting to have the conversations and then drawing the line of like, "No, we're not going to talk about anything political. It's going to be an apolitical space."
Tim Cynova:
In your recounting that story, I hear the echoes in where we are today, around that makes me as a white person feel uncomfortable or shameful or I feel bad. And so this is the workplace. Those are feelings I shouldn't be having here, or I shouldn't need to talk about race or racism in the workplace. We should just all get along and realizing, well, that's a pretty privileged place to be coming from.
Kit Hughes:
It is.
Tim Cynova:
To be able to say those things. In life, to be able to turn that thing off.
Kit Hughes:
I agree with you and I think part of this journey, talk about the journey that white people are on that white people don't think about themselves as white people. White people think about themselves as people and they don't understand that everyone else thinks about themselves as, fill in the blank people. Black people. Asian people. We don't have any qualifiers onto the words we use to describe ourselves. We call ourselves Americans and we call the people that were here before us Native Americans and I'm excited to see that there is more of a understanding now of indigenous populations.
Kit Hughes:
But the thing I want to really say to that ties into that is that it's a journey for white people to understand that they are white people and it's a self-reflection, and that's really uncomfortable. Anybody that's gone through therapy understands that it is uncomfortable to examine yourself and examine the blind spots that you have and that's why therapists refer to it as, the work. I love your language around calling this, the work, as well. And a deep feeling that I have is, oh, this is going to take a while. We didn't get here overnight. We're talking about programming of consciousness of white people for centuries, maybe even longer.
Kit Hughes:
I understand an immediate reaction might be, "Well, there's a documentation of slavery by non-white people in other cultures," and those kind of things. Give me a break. I'll self-edit my curse words out. I'm going to try to not curse in this entire interview, but give me a break. When those arguments start to be lobbied, or sort of lobbed in response to the fact that we need to self-examine, it just shows actually where somebody is in their journey. That it's going to be harder for them.
Kit Hughes:
I have a belief that we need to understand that we're signing up for something that's going to take generations to correct. It doesn't mean that we slack off now. This is a long endurance race but we're unwinding centuries of programming that is going to take a bit. And so if we look at let's just take the past 400 years.
Kit Hughes:
The past 400 years, they were pretty good for most white people. What the hard reality is, is that financial gain has a kind of a messy history when it comes to squeezing other people, including other white people. I might add. Squeezing other people in order to have that financial gain. I think that part of what even business has to come to terms with is that it's going to take us a while to unwind this, but the businesses that are doing the work right now, that there will be an economic advantage and a competitive advantage, to whether it's attracting the workforce, whether it's actually bringing better products and services to market because of diverse viewpoints. All of those things from a business perspective, lead to a level of success that anyone would take, but that it's people are scared or they don't understand yet because it isn't the previous metrics of the past 400 years of product market fit and all of those things that you think about when you're running or starting a business.
Tim Cynova:
I think one of the interesting things and hopeful things that's happened in the past 18 months or so as we've been going through a global pandemic, sort of a racial awakening in the United States, is that people who haven't seen the systems and structures in place are starting to see the systems and structures in place and how we talk about white supremacy culture, that's embedded in the laws and the structures and everything here. People are starting to intersect with this in a different way, I think, as the system is being stressed. People are starting to realize, oh, that's problematic. And the question like, all right, well, what can we do about that?
Tim Cynova:
I think this is from a work standpoint, this is a really interesting place to be as people are asking themselves, how can our policies and our language and our practices and programs and initiatives be looked at through a lens of anti-racism, anti-oppression, justice, equity? How can we take our like hybrid work policies that many organizations have right now and say, "Does this work for everyone or just the white guys in power?" We're not going to solve racism in our lifetimes, but what can we do right now and how can we use our power and privilege in the roles we hold to be a part of that change?
Tim Cynova:
In your own organization, look, listen. You've wrestled with systemic racism. I remember one of the last times we talked, you've put out an action plan and been publishing around what your hopes were for that. Can you unpack a little bit more of like, what's it been like? How has that been received? How has it changed? Where are you now?
Kit Hughes:
I'd be happy to. I'll just say that I appreciate our previous conversations that we've had publicly that have been broadcast and I appreciate this dialogue because I think this is what it's going to take. It's going to take people sharing notes and saying, "Well, this is working right now." And somebody jumping in and saying, "Wait, it's working, but that's a short term fix." We would do this with our finances. We would do this with business processes. We would consult other CEOs. We need to be having this dialogue in the same vein as we do financial performance and business processes and those kind of things. So, thank you for being a person that is making these kind of conversations possible.
Kit Hughes:
I'd like to actually describe briefly, before I get into how things are going and the seasons that we've had as a company, and we grew really fast. We were on the Inc. 500, a number of years ago. We went through like this rapid growth. Company founded by two people, me and my co-founder. We were childhood friends. We grew up in that same kind of small town, Kentucky environment, not diverse. And what we found ourselves understanding a bit was, I think early on was, the power of business to affect people's lives, to change people's lives, even in small ways.
Kit Hughes:
I think that we had it easy early on because we were in Atlanta, we were conscious guys. We found ourselves having our first sort of season as a company, getting up to about 20 people and having a beautifully diverse group of people. I'm talking age, ethnic, geolocation, thought, backgrounds, racial and ethnic diversity. All these kind of things and we didn't catch it slip away soon enough. When we kept growing and it was this between 20 and 25 people was when that diversity started to really peel off.
Kit Hughes:
I have spent many sleepless nights trying to go back and say, "Was it one thing? Was it this? Was it that?" We all know, it's never just one thing. As much as human beings we want to truly believe that the cause of something is one thing, nature is such that it is never just one thing. Like we were so disconnected from nature.
Kit Hughes:
Because of the way our brains are wired and work and the way our society is has worked, we need to put things in boxes so that we can understand them. Over time, we've built structures. Our societies and cities and those kind of things that actually are built around our ability to have the cognition to understand and manage those things.
Kit Hughes:
When you go out into nature and you go off the grid, you start to understand that nature operates in a way that we cannot truly comprehend and so I have to remind myself, and my company, that it's never just one thing. That when I look at that moment, I think we made human decisions and it was likely due to people we put into leadership. It was likely due to our hiring practices. It was likely due to our management and appraisal practices. It got a little too far away from us.
Kit Hughes:
I tried to express a dissatisfaction with it, as it slipped away. It was difficult to get anyone to pay attention to it because honestly, it's just the way we were all programmed in business. Like, "Well, what do you want for me to do about it?" It was hard and I didn't have the tools. I did not have those tools by which to say, "Here are points of entry in which we can deal with this."
Kit Hughes:
And so we went through a season in which we lost that diversity and I made a huge, huge, huge mistake as a leader. I said, "Okay. Well, I can't get our company to understand that this is a problem, so I'm going to take that energy and that passion I have for this topic, and I'm going to send it elsewhere." And so what I did was I took that energy outside of my company and I made investments in Black owned businesses and minority entrepreneurs. I did a huge disservice to the company that I co-founded and last year was a humbling point for me because everyone woke up. Everyone woke up to that moment in time where, call it what you will, the fog cleared. The scales fell off the eyes, whatever, and people realized in that moment in time that there is a big, big problem.
Kit Hughes:
I sat down and I came clean on the mistakes that I made as a leader, as the CEO of a company, and I wasn't doing it to get credit. I told people, "I'm not saying any of this to get credit. I just need for you all to know that I made a mistake and this is how I made it and this is how we're going to fix it." I solicited advice from anyone that had ideas.
Kit Hughes:
So what we did last year as a company was we said, okay, we're going to look at our processes from top to bottom. We admit that there may be systemic racism in say our annual appraisal process, in how we hire, all of these things by which we bring people into the company. We took a version of my letter that I sent into the company post-George Floyd and we gave a public version of that letter and announced our commitment to changes and then we were really happy, within 90 days, to be able to say, "Here are the things that we have done."
Kit Hughes:
I want to track back to one thing, which is in 2019, after that conference that I met you at, I felt incredibly moved to try to do something at a level that helped people like us. When I say people like us, I'm referring to white males, in positions of power, to give them points of entry.
Kit Hughes:
So I wrote an open letter to white male entrepreneurs. I literally wrote it on the deck outside of that conference during the last session, I said, "Here are tangible ways in which you can actually help. You can take a minority entrepreneur and you can introduce them to your banker. You can take a minority entrepreneur and introduce them to your attorney." All these systemic things that we, in a good way, that we actually have access to because of systemic racism, we need to give out and we need to be Trojan horses into the system for these entrepreneurs that are not treated the same way.
Kit Hughes:
And so I gave these very tangible things and I also said a few things that were a little harsh, and I hope that in time, some people will forgive me. But I said, "Stop writing books about what you did that was successful and as your company and believing that in 250 pages, another company can just pick it up. If you don't have an entire chapter or more dedicated to the fact that systemic racism actually helped you achieve those things."
Kit Hughes:
And so that was not well received by some of my peers and I'm not apologizing for it, but I just hope in time that they understand that I'm not attacking that book that they wrote after they exited a company. You know, that's the thing that a white CEO does is that they write a book and say, "This is how I did it." It's like, stop doing that. That energy that you put into that, take that energy and disperse it elsewhere.
Kit Hughes:
One of the things that I introduced in that letter as well was a mantra that white male entrepreneurs, and I specifically say entrepreneurs because we're a different breed than just a CEO at a big company that's classically trained. We create wealth and can time hack the creation of wealth and systems, as entrepreneurs.
Kit Hughes:
And so what I said was, "Here's a mantra that you should consider and it's my mantra. I will not prosper until women prosper. I will not prosper until people of color prosper. I will not prosper until everyone prospers." And you could flip it and make it non-negative by saying, "I will prosper when women prosper. I will prosper when people of color prosper." That's probably the better way to say it, by making it positive. But what it is it's meant to give points of entry because we founded our company wanting to be a company that puts women in positions of leadership. We achieved that, but because of just that focus, we actually left some systems behind that allowed for people of color to prosper and so that's what we're sort of course correcting.
Kit Hughes:
For a white male that's in business to understand. These are points of entry. Okay, I get it if you can't feel like you're solving everyone's problem. Start with gender inequality. Start there and then also don't forget you haven't prospered yet when you solve that problem, but that it's when people of color prosper as well. And then when you get to everyone and the fact that we are all connected and that we're interconnected. Interdependence is one of my favorite words and concepts and you look to nature. It exists in nature. It exists in human nature, but we can't totally understand it or accept it. And so that mantras meant to be that.
Kit Hughes:
I'll rattle off a couple of quick hits that we've done as a company, beyond my own admission and we've done, you know, commitment pledges. Like in Atlanta, there's a great a program called The A Pledge, in which all of us agencies have gotten together and have pledged to create diversity inside of our industry, given ourselves timelines. We've made commitments. I signed the Georgia Hate Crimes Legislation, and I pledged to do so in every other state that we did business, that we had a presence, that type of legislation came available. I had no issues in doing that. But putting signatures on things are kind of like, "Okay, that's fine to commit, but you need to start showing it."
Kit Hughes:
We changed our HR processes in the most simple way as well, when we go to recruit. We said, "We cannot fill a position until a person that meets a diversity qualification has been interviewed." Also, when we go to schools to recruit, we need to go to more diverse schools. We cannot go to primarily white institutions. I'm also not saying that we have to exclusively go to HBCUs.
Kit Hughes:
In Atlanta. We have this amazing university called Georgia State. It's not an HBCU, and it's not a primarily white institution, but it's incredibly, incredibly diverse. So let's show up at GSU job fairs. Let's make sure that the universities we're recruiting from, actually have the fabric that we are looking to create inside of our company. And by making those few changes, we have seen immediate, immediate movement of the needle in returning us to what we were in our founding up to that 20 person range.
Kit Hughes:
We also created a DEI Council in which we're figuring out ways to engage our entire group of people. What we've ran into as a challenge is that it's really hard to engage everyone because not everybody's in the same place and I understand that a challenge that other CEOs are facing, but that doesn't mean you give up. You continue to play with formats. You continue to play with training. You continue to iterate, we're a culture of continuous improvement. We want to make sure that we're figuring out ways to constantly engage.
Kit Hughes:
And most recently we have decided that our DEI efforts for our council are actually going to be focused on creating a piece of content. A really, really cool piece of content that in a positive way, brings DEI education out there. What we found is a way that we can enlist our people through the work, through their own art forms, to actually create something. And so we've assembled a team internally that includes all of our business units, and it includes a diverse amount of people that are going to help to create this piece of content and it's going to be really, really cool. We've brainstormed it together. We're conceptualizing it. We're going to produce it together and it's a gift to the world in a way that says, "The DEI conversation doesn't have to always be around exactly what you're doing wrong. It's on the celebration side."
Kit Hughes:
That same message that I gave on the Mall in Washington, DC, around color and it's positive. It's like celebrate color. Embody color. That is what we want to be able to do with this piece of content and so we're super excited about it. It will be released next year. It will be a really cool piece of navigable, non-linear content, that has some cool interactivity to it and that tells a great story. I'll be happy to share that with you when we get done, but those are ways in which we're looking to engage people that may not all be in the same exact place.
Tim Cynova:
Kit, thank you so much for sharing your personal journey, your vulnerability, your mistakes, your learning, as a reflection of this lifelong journey we're on together and thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Kit Hughes:
Thank you for creating a forum for us to speak about this, for being open to the dialogue, and I do want to say, I hope nothing came across as me pretending to have all the answers. I think I might have all the questions, but I definitely don't have all the answers and this is a journey. Everybody needs to absolutely understand that and you've got to pack that backpack and get on the journey as soon as possible.
Kit Hughes:
I appreciate you, Tim, for creating this dialogue because it's going to help. It's going to accelerate the journey. It really truly is. So, thank you for that.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation, or just feeling generous today, please consider writing review on iTunes so that others might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or a phone of friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep9: Conversation with David Reuter (EP.62)
In episode nine of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews David Reuter, Partner at LLR, a private equity firm based in Philadelphia investing in technology and healthcare businesses.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
June 21, 2022
In episode nine of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews David Reuter, Partner at LLR, a private equity firm based in Philadelphia investing in technology and healthcare businesses.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
DAVID REUTER is a senior private equity investment professional combining strong financial and strategic analysis skills, extensive transaction experience, and proven leadership and business development capabilities. He possesses an analytical mind that quickly adapts to new environments and situations, and is self-motivated and dynamic with natural business decision skills. David is a Partner with LLR Partners, a lower middle market private equity firm investing in technology and healthcare businesses. LLR collaborates with its portfolio companies to define high-impact growth initiatives, turn them into action and create long-term value. Founded in 1999 and with more than $5 billion raised, LLR is a flexible provider of equity capital for growth, recapitalizations and buyouts. Find out more about David here.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
David Reuter:
So I see people feeling overwhelmed with, how do I start? I have an hour today to do something, what do I do with my hour? And so I think the unknown and that linking is hard. And I think the other hard thing too is unpacking it individually. There's a lot of emotion that comes with it. I think there's a lot of denial that everybody subconsciously applies, not me type of thing. And I don't know that there's great trainers out there for the unpacking, to do it effectively for people. So I think there's a lot of ground to cover there. So then even we're talking about, there's some deep learning and reflection and developing that you got to do before you... I don't know if we even know how to quantify that. If somebody says, "Well, how long do I need to do the deep learning and reflecting before I can go take action?" I don't know what to say. Is that a week? Is it a month? Is it a year? Is it 20 years?
David Reuter:
I think those are the things that have been hard for us. I think the stuff that we've done, I feel like I'm happy with how it's going. It's always harder than you think. It takes longer than you think. It's more complicated to get consensus. But I feel like the steps that we've taken, I'm happy with how they're going.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck; a podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini-series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast, where my cohost Lauren Ruffin and I introduce the series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys can be found on workshouldntsuck.co.
Tim Cynova:
In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens. Others, inclusion and belonging. Still others, equity and impact. Through these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey? What's been most challenging? And since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with.
Tim Cynova:
On today's conversation, I'm joined by David Reuter, a partner at LLR, a private equity firm based in Philadelphia, investing in technology and healthcare businesses. You can read more about David in his bio that's included in the description for this episode. So in the interest of time, let's get going. David, welcome to the podcast.
David Reuter:
Thanks, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
So David, how do you typically introduce yourself and the work that you do?
David Reuter:
My paid job is providing growth in tech healthcare companies with capital and advisory services to help them grow and thrive. I'm part of a 100 person private equity firm, where we raise capital from large institutional investors and help those investors gain access to the frontline of these small growth companies. My unpaid job is to try to bring equity to the private equity market. Our industry has historically been pretty poor at diversity at the investor level. And then for a range of different factors, at the business evolution level, where it's just hard to gain access. And I think it's time to start to modernize this industry through the diversity, equity and inclusion lens at both the investment firms like mine and also at the growth companies that we support.
Tim Cynova:
What has that journey looked like for you to get to the place where you're trying to bring equity to field of equity?
David Reuter:
Yeah. It's interesting because I think in a lot of ways, pioneering. And I know for our culture, whenever you think of something new, usually the mandate is, go figure out what the other thought leaders are doing in the industry and see if we can replicate that. We tried that here, but there's not a whole lot out there in the public domain. So I think it's testing our boundaries just in general on some creativity and innovation to figure out how to do it. And that's really what we're embarking on over the past couple of years and have some pretty good examples we can share today.
Tim Cynova:
I found that early in the work that I was doing, where I was asking facilitators that were coming in and be like, "All right. Case studies, can you point me in direction of them?" We're like, "Yeah. There aren't many." And one of them in particular said, "But we'll be looking into what you're doing and so hope you'll be publishing about it." The white guys series that we're doing here is capturing some of the stories to share, because there is so much work that's being done in different ways.
David Reuter:
Absolutely.
Tim Cynova:
I guess, to start, how do you frame the commitment, the "work" that you're doing? Anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, justice, inclusion. How do you categorize that commitment?
David Reuter:
I like all the words you just used and I tend to incorporate most of them into the way that we see and are starting to frame the work that we want to do. The one that you didn't use that I also like, so I'd add to the list because I think it's a bit broader umbrella term and I'll talk more about how we're thinking about impact in a bit as well. But I think all of those words mean different things. And in some ways, you have to look at the comprehensive solution to cover each of them individually and maybe all of them as a whole eventually.
Tim Cynova:
How long have you really been thinking about this work personally? And then what does that look like at LLR as an organization?
David Reuter:
For me, I think I'm a late bloomer. I'm a white male. I grew up without noticing the privilege that I got by being both or each, white and male. And I certainly knew racism existed, but I think I saw it more in the form of what extreme people were doing versus everyday systematic versions of it. And I also felt like there was a group of people that were taking care of it. I don't know who that was exactly in my mind, but that it was getting taken care of and it didn't need to be something I worried about. And then if you fast forward to being an adult, I sought diversity for myself. I think I mostly did it because I wanted to be an interesting person. I wanted to experience and learn new and different things.
David Reuter:
And one of the places that that journey took me intentionally was into a mixed-race family. If you look at my close family today, it's small, it's 16 people. And that's grandparents, parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. And across those 16 people, I literally have white, Hispanic, Black, and then each combination of those. So almost every person is like in its own racial class in this family or maybe there's two of something. And I think, unfortunately, I hate to mention the name, but the Trump election was really a shock for me because I started to see all the dimensions of racism that existed through that election cycle and the news cycle associated with it. And it was really a wake up call that people weren't taking care of racism and that it was a lot more systemic than I realized and it was really existing everywhere in an unlimited number of ways. And it really wasn't just the extreme people. It was everybody that was part of it.
David Reuter:
And then I think looking at my own family, just realizing that now I have these people that I am really closely connected to and care about deeply that are going to have to go through a lot of these different experiences as not white people that I lived. I realize that, I think first, I need to jump in, in a much different way to the work and I think ultimately motivate everybody to jump in. Because I think without everybody or a lot of people, we're not really going to make progress. I think to get to equity for each individual and peace in our country, you're going to need a lot of people really running in the same direction. So that's a little bit about me and my connection to it. Let me pause there and then I'm happy to jump into the work side of it as well.
Tim Cynova:
What have you found most useful in your personal journey?
David Reuter:
I think there's a bunch of things. I think that the way that I met you was through a group of people that are working on unpacking this in community. And so I think that one important part is finding other people that you can talk to about this. Because certainly if I went around to existing relationships that I have, there's going to be different degrees of interest in chatting about all these topics and maybe awareness or comfort talking about these topics. So I think there's a community aspect that I think when I do my own inventory, I feel like my personal network, my friends, my family are pretty homogenous in views. And so on one hand, it's good because I don't happen to have a lot of relationships with extreme racist people. But on the other hand, I think that my relationships are probably fairly moderate and passive in terms of what they're doing to drive change as well.
David Reuter:
So I think it's jumping outside of that comfort zone to find some people that are more like minded and ready to be activated. So I think that's a piece that's been interesting. I've also really jumped into a lot of training and learning and development, because I feel really unsophisticated from every aspect of even processing all of this stuff. I feel nervous about having conversations that I'm going to offend other people that look different than me on the other side of the table. So I've almost tried to absorb as much as possible. I just think there's so much learning and introspection that needs to happen first to give you perspective to then jump in and do action.
David Reuter:
I'll tell you a funny anecdote. We were doing some of this learning and reflecting work at my firm and maybe I was six months ahead on the program. And I just remember after a couple hours worth of talking at the firm, everybody was like, "We got to go. We need to jump in and take action." And I was like, "Let's be patient. We've only done two hours of listening to podcasts and talking about it." And then the next week now we're three hours in. I was like, "All right. Let's take a pause. Everyone wants to take action. I'm going to get out a pen and paper and let's talk about what we can do as a firm. Who wants to go first with an idea?" And nobody had an idea.
David Reuter:
And so I think that the linkage of learning and reflecting and getting trained and developed and educated takes longer than I think people's typical attention span is. And I do think that's important to then jump into the doing part and the action part so you can do it well. So I think for me, I'm in the earlier phases of trying to develop a network, trying to build some community and trying to feel like I'm getting caught up on an education that for me personally was... even though I feel like I'm a highly educated individual, it was a lacking piece of that educational experience for all of my life until pretty recently.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. We often hear about that tension, especially among white guys in leadership where, now what do we do about this? I'm often reminded of that quote, while white people are learning, black people are dying. And also, white people just need to sit with this. The group that we're a part of, we're working through Me and White Supremacy, Layla Saad's book in a very methodical way of, let's sit with the discomfort and really go deep on this. And at the same time, there's that tension about, all right, how do we operationalize this commitment into the things because we know it's happening right now? How does this start showing up at LLR, at the workplace? What has that journey been like with you and your colleagues, in particular as you are a white guy who holds positional power and privilege?
David Reuter:
Our journey's been interesting. For better or for worse, we started a concerted effort about six years ago, actually. And it was initially around some feedback that we had received from an investor who's capital came from a diverse community and felt that our team lacked diversity and felt that we owed it to their constituency to do better. And it was sad. I think that we probably didn't even realize it until it was brought up. So that was a little disappointing. But we took it on and I feel like this work is learning to walk. The initial year of what we were trying to do were like baby steps with a lot of falling down. And by falling down, I mean lack of progress where you're not going too far.
David Reuter:
And at first, it was really focused around our internal talent and what do the members of our firm look like? What backgrounds do they have? And for us, diversity actually even just started with non-male. So we need more women to start. We need non-white races next. So we got going with that. And I think that the next window was really the George Floyd movement was I think, a deeper smack in the face that really triggered us to take a bigger step back and look in the mirror to see who we are versus who we want to be. And I think that that led to a much deeper level of effort and energy to really stop with the baby steps and dive into the deep end of the pool and really start to think about how we can lead in our industry and try to drive more aggressive change and have more aggressive impact.
David Reuter:
And again, in a lot of ways, we're still early, even though we're six years in, but I'm still proud of where we've gotten, which is, we're now in process of building a multifaceted office of impact for the firm. And we're looking at literally every inch of our business model and finding places where we can have impact on our team and the diversity and equity too of our team on the firm as a whole. We have about 40 companies that we invest in that we're owners of. So then on those companies, that's the extended network of us. And then on the community, we're based in Philadelphia, as you mentioned. So we want to have an impact locally. I think people feel really passionate about why they're here in Philadelphia and want to help the city and people in the city that need it. And also the industry at large, which I mentioned earlier has not been great in the diversity and equity realm.
David Reuter:
Where that is inside the firm and to your point of harnessing all this energy, for me I'd rather see the unbridled energy. Then I can help the team shape and focus and deploy, than the lack of energy where then I have to stimulate it. So at least there's a spark and I want to hold onto that spark. And one example of something that really blew my mind recently was we've been doing... Again, this is my philosophy. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I've been trying to get people to walk before they run and to do this training and learning and introspection. And we've been doing a lot of this training of people inside the firm on racism, on diversity, on equity, on where firms like ours can go. And a lot of it has to do with themselves. And we've been having these round table discussions. And I can talk more about that later. It was a pretty interesting experience, both direct and indirect outcomes of those.
David Reuter:
Anyway, last year in the fall, we had a three-hour session with a great consulting firm that was talking about racial equity. I knew it was going to be a great session because I had done it before personally. I knew the facilitators and so I was pumped, but I said, "So we have this great session for three or four hours. And then what do we do with that?" And so we decided at the end of the session, because we didn't have any time in the schedule, we would invite people to this optional meeting the next day. And the invitation was, if you like what you hear and you want to engage in a deeper way, come to this meeting tomorrow and we can figure out what that means, totally open ended.
David Reuter:
And normally, we do other things like that at the firm where you have these volunteer extra credit stuff. And usually three to five people show up. So it's like, "Who wants to help with where we're going to donate money next year? Who wants to help with the social committee for what fun things we're going to do next year?" And you get a few people and it's great.
David Reuter:
So we show up the next day and there's over 30 people, which is over half the firm. And they're like, "We're in, let's go." And it was just great to see that the firm and the firm's culture has really developed a lot of passion for impact in a lot of genuine interest and making a difference. And so I want to make sure that I can, as a leader, keep that going. And it's amazing too, because these people are already running past me in the race with better ideas and more energy and more creativity. So it's phenomenal to see and inspiring to see that people can really take the ball and run with it.
Tim Cynova:
That's really exciting. Because as you pointed out, this is innovative work and it doesn't exist. There's not a template that we can just pull off the shelf. I mean, they're beginning to be some kinds of things that might approximate templates, but it's unique and bespoke. And so that's why I always find the fascinating with the learning. What are you doing? How are you approaching it? How can I do that differently? Or what can I learn from that? And so it's really great to have those different ideas. As you talk about the initial impetus for this work, having a client who said you're essentially a bunch of white people that doesn't feel aligned with the values that the people who are providing the capital. So you have clients, investors, you have your firm, and then you also influence a lot of other companies by being owners. What does that relationship look like? How does this inform and change the way you typically might work with other companies?
David Reuter:
That's a work in progress right now. We're mostly focused on what we can control right now, which is our own firm because there's a lot to do there. But we do have a process map laid out where later this year we intend to take a lot of the things that we've learned and done ourselves. And in some ways, turn it into a package that we can hand off to our companies because what we're finding... And maybe this has to change too. Eventually it's going to just take more work. But what we're finding is a lot of these companies, they're pretty intense in terms of the pressure on them to grow and perform and deliver on their business plans. I think that they do want to engage in a range of elements around diversity, around equity, around inclusion, around anti-racism, around making the world better.
David Reuter:
Some of the business models have a more natural connection into that. For instance, we invest in some healthcare companies that are actively trying to change their patient bases or change their outcomes or other things. But there are others that are software companies or technology companies that don't have as clear of a delineation of how they can impact the greater good. But I also see there's a time limitation that seems to come up a lot with anything that's outside of driving the business forward. And so I think we're trying to modularize this where maybe companies could have a bigger impact more efficiently, because we can take out a lot of the learning curve. And I do think over time, my hope would be that there also could be more time and space set aside to do this work because I think that the time and space is also needed.
David Reuter:
Step one is getting engagement. And I think if we can accelerate the time to value for some of these companies, because I think they do want to do a lot of these things. I think their younger workforce members are expecting it and it's becoming a bit more table stakes, I think as you try to employ people in the younger generations to have companies tackling this. And I know we get a tremendous amount of positive feedback from our younger colleagues that they love it, they're so excited by it, they have friends at other firms and nobody's talking about this other than us and so it's becoming more of a differentiator. But I think other people will have to follow that as well. So we do have an intent to guide this out. And then I think in the longer range, one of the things that we're looking into now is, does this become a bit of a differentiator for us in terms of how we find companies and how we plug into companies and who those companies are.
David Reuter:
And we got to figure that out. We have to unpack that because I think our investors today, they want the return first. And if you could do these other things behind it, that's an added bonus. And I think the question that some people are asking, which I think is a good question, is a lot of the investors or pension plans that represent communities of lots of people in the US. And how do those people feel? Do they want a blend of return and good, and what's the right mixture? And I think we're going to start working on that with those investors too, just to see what's possible and what the real guidelines are on that. So I think that you could see changes in the investment approach in the selection process and the sourcing process that start to plug in back to characteristics that are in the DE&I realm and landscape.
Tim Cynova:
I think it's interesting the approach here. You're starting to think about with the companies you're involved with, in a way of creating the processes and systems, and sharing in a way that they've already been vetted... Like inclusive hiring. You don't have to have gone deep into anti-racism and anti-oppression to be... including something like salaries in job postings or strictly structured interviews. You don't have to know the background of what this thing is, but you can help even without knowing that, I guess is what I'm saying there.
Tim Cynova:
I'd like to go back to the round table discussions at the company. As you mentioned, a lot of people showed up, a lot of people want to be involved in the work. What have those kinds of conversations looked like? And what have been the conversations at LLR that you're like, "Well, that was pretty easy"? And what are some of the ones where you're like, "Wow, that took a turn and I didn't expect it to maybe get thorny or really challenging"?
David Reuter:
I'm not sure that I have a great example of something that I would say didn't go well. I don't know that we've failed at something yet in this line of effort. I think the hard part to date has just been the unknown. My example earlier of all these people saying, we want to go do things and we want to get to work, but then nobody having an idea. That's just an unknown. I know there's a problem, I know I want to help solve that problem, but I have no idea what action to take to go solve the problem. So I think that's the scary part.
David Reuter:
I think the global pandemic. One thing for me that I keep thinking about is pre-pandemic. My kids are in school. We're pretty conservative at, we're not doing a whole lot for the last couple years outside of ourselves. So a lot of interaction with random people, whether it's meeting new people in my own work, networking or travels. We used to go do a lot more in person meetings. There'd be some downtime from formal conversations. You lose that with Zoom. Just meeting people randomly. Everything is take out and delivery. You're not even going to the grocery stores much or going on vacation as much. I feel like there's a lot of practice areas for some of this stuff in terms of just having small, basic conversations in your day to day life that I don't get to have and most people don't get to have. So I think that the hard part is the unknown. The hard part is seeing a problem that is really massive, and as you said, 400 years old or been around for a long time and seeps into every place you look.
David Reuter:
So I see people feeling overwhelmed with, how do I start? I have an hour today to do something, what do I do with my hour? And so I think the unknown and that linking is hard. And I think the other hard thing too is unpacking it individually. There's a lot of emotion that comes with it. I think there's a lot of denial that everybody subconsciously applies, not me type of thing. And I don't know that there's great trainers out there for the unpacking, to do it effectively for people. So I think there's a lot of ground to cover there. So then even we're talking about, there's some deep learning and reflection and developing that you got to do before you... I don't know if we even know how to quantify that. If somebody says, "Well, how long do I need to do the deep learning and reflecting before I can go take action?" I don't know what to say. Is that a week? Is it a month? Is it a year? Is it 20 years?
David Reuter:
I think those are the things that have been hard for us. I think the stuff that we've done, I feel like I'm happy with how it's going. It's always harder than you think. It takes longer than you think. It's more complicated to get consensus. But I feel like the steps that we've taken, I'm happy with how they're going.
David Reuter:
So examples would be our new hires are 50% not white males. And so that's up from a very small percentage. So I'm happy with that. We put in place a program just recently for our companies where we want to have at least one diverse board of directors member over a set timeframe of a year or something after we invest. Again, I don't know that's enough, but it's a start and we got consensus in alignment that we're going to make people do that. I think there's a lot of things like that. We launched a fund with capital from our team to invest in local funds that are controlled by diverse managers to invest in diverse owned and operated businesses. And so there's a full circle of community impact and investing capital that's being created by that. So all those things, they're off to a good start for early days. And the hard part is the strategy part and figuring it out.
Tim Cynova:
I'm reminded of a framing that my colleague, Courtney Harge sketched out a couple years ago where she was using Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to be an expert or I guess that framing is "mastery." And she's like, "I did a quick sketch of people of color. If all they do is interact with whiteness in school and work," she's like, "By the time they're 30, they've interacted with whiteness 50,000 hours." So she's like, "I'm five times over expert and whiteness." And then to your earlier point, how much do you have to do before it's enough? It's like, "All right. Well, more than reading. That book and podcast might be great, you're just getting started." What does that mean to really understand whiteness that deep as someone who's not white? And then what's the journey look like for those of us who are middle aged, mid-career, just starting to learn about what this is and how it shows up and how it influences in a lot of unknown ways, the course of our careers and life? And then what do we actually do about it?
Tim Cynova:
Often it's a helpful touchstone to go back to, 50,000 hours at least. I've done my own tally on hours, but I know I'm still working up to 10,000. Also, I did a session with a fellow white guy around anti-racism and work. And it was like an hour long session. At the end, this white guy is like, "Yeah. That's all great but can you give some tangible things that we can do at our company?" And I'm like, "Oh God, the whole hour was spent on tangible things that we did in the organization." And my colleagues said, "I think people confuse tangible with impactful, and impactful with visible." Adding pronouns to email is tangible. Ending gender discrimination is impactful. And increasing gender diversity at the organization is visible. As you think about that framing and the work and the approach that LLR is taking, what resonates with you in those different distinctions?
David Reuter:
Yeah. It's a great question and I have to try to remember the quote. I like the quote of the differences between some of those words that probably seem fairly similar from a distance. As I mentioned at the beginning, we're all about impact and that's really how we're defining this initiative for us. So it's pretty broad base. And I think at the end of the day, it is what we're about is having an impact and having a lasting impact. All people to have equity. And we want to find a way to pave the road to make that happen.
David Reuter:
But with that said, I'm opening my eyes to some small things. And so in your example of the tangible, impactful, visible variations, I recently read a really interesting article of adding pronouns to emails as why. And it wasn't something I had thought about from the lens of the author and I thought it was a good learning experience. And I took that to our team and I said, "I think we should do this."
David Reuter:
For me, what's valuable in the addition of the pronouns, the emails or your LinkedIn profile or whatever is when everybody rolls their eyes when you announce it, and then doing the little training to talk about why we're doing it and helping people see this other point of view that I personally hadn't seen even recently until this article came up. And so I think that's getting the ball rolling because now people are like, "Why are we doing this?" Then you explain it. And maybe a little light bulb goes off in that moment of the symbolism of it, even though to your point, it's not impactful, it's just a tangible change.
David Reuter:
But the question is, does that tangible change that sparks the conversation internally and gets people's juices flowing a little bit on the idea? Can that also then have things follow behind it that are going to lead to ending gender discrimination? So I do feel like they're building blocks and sometimes those small things may be dismissed because they feel small, but I think sometimes they can be building blocks to go for the bigger wins once you point out the problem. Because one thing that I'm starting to see, I have kids who are seven and nine, and they're talking about this in school, talking about racism, talking about diversity, they're talking about equity, they're talking about all these different family structures that I haven't even heard of before, based on race and gender and ethnicity and families that are mixed because of divorced parents.
David Reuter:
To me, I just had a family. We were just white and married and that was it. And so there's a concept about admitting a problem, in all the different problem solving universes of Alcoholics Anonymous and all these different places that try to help people with different issues, that admitting the problem is often a big first step. And I think around the racism topic, I do believe for most people that are educated, either not really educated, there's a problem. But you're taught social studies and you're taught history and you're taught politics and all these other things. There's this great book, People's History of the United States. And it's the history book that's told from the underdogs or the losers' perspective in each conflict that existed in the country. And it's fascinating because it's such a different point of view than what we've all learned. And I think both sides were true. There's a winner story and a loser story and I think it's important to hear both.
David Reuter:
Getting out on the problem part... I think if you started life with kids and saying, "We live in a world that has a couple problems that are significant, and racism is one of those problems. And we're all working on changing this and solving this problem or taking apart this racism issue." I think the kids end up being different adults because you just start with a totally different vantage point. But what we're doing now is we're just perpetuating, there's no problem, everything's great. Great history, great country, living in the best place on earth. Go to college, get a job, make money, American dream. And I think there's a way to have both, where you can teach that there's a problem, that there's some fairness and equity that we need to go unpack and work for. And I think that can be really powerful.
David Reuter:
I think it's got to start young, I think it's got to start with honesty. But I think going back to my example of the gender pronouns that still having a conversation with a group of adults that never got the memo when they were back to fourth grade of these gender bias issues, and aren't really conscious of it because they're just their gender and they don't have any personal issues with that. And so they don't appreciate the person sitting next to them that has an issue and is not comfortable working where we are because we're not recognizing who they are. And so I think then you start that conversation of pointing out that there's an issue and then figuring out like, how can we be more attuned to that issue?
Tim Cynova:
I think that's one of the really interesting things about, as we do this work in our organizations, people join us along the way. And it's not like we go back to the very beginning where we're like the history of the creation of race. People have to join along the way and they're bringing in different perspectives about the work that further pushes forward the work. Me growing up as a white kid in Indiana, I learned a very specific thing. And then I got to be 35 and I'm like, "I missed a lot of stuff here. I'm a 35 year old white guy who's leading organizations who has less than a complete understanding of how America works."
David Reuter:
And it's like to your point earlier about the 50,000 hour concept and the 10,000 hour concept, it's like, because you started out without the problem identified mindset, every experience you had in your whole life you looked at through a lens of everything's okay. Almost every interaction you probably had in your whole life, if you looked at slightly differently, I think you end up being a pretty different person at how you respond to things and how you weigh and evaluate things. So it's powerful. Wherever the starting line is of sharing the big secret, I think really changes the outcome of how that's done.
Tim Cynova:
Well. And that's been one of the interesting things about working through Layla Saad's Me and White Supremacy with the 28 day prompts. We're like, "I know I've done this, but I've had white privilege that I haven't had to think about this before." And so trying to get back to unpacking some of the ways we've shown up in our lives that we just haven't had to think about and just floats through your mind. And now, to really take a concerted time together with other people who are doing the work has been really meaningful. And yourself included in our group that gets together weekly to talk about this personally, and how we show up. As we're coming up on time and landing the plane, what else is on your mind?
David Reuter:
The big to do for me in 2022, and this is only coincidental to the fact that we're talking today. But we did yesterday a kickoff on a big strategy planning project that we're doing over six months at my firm was to me a very impressive impact investing consultancy that I think is a really great blend of investment returns and capitalism that is a part of who we are, unfortunately, with how you can find opportunities to do good, be more diverse and equitable and make the world a better place like the and, where there's definitely a lot of people out there that I think push for the or, which is like we've met consultants we're like, "What you should do is shut your firm down and everybody quit their jobs and all go join the Peace Corps, go help some other country." And it's like, "Well, we're not quite ready to do that."
David Reuter:
So is there something in between doing nothing that we've done for a long time and literally going that extreme? And so we're excited we found a thought partner to help us through that. And we have some really, really big ideas that we want to capture and refine and push forward. And the hope is that we're going to do that over the first half of this year. And then the second half, we're going to then try to transition and take a lot of that, to package it into what we can give to the portfolio companies. And then really, I call it blast radius. We have a really far reach between ourselves, but then this network of these companies that they have a lot of employees, they have a lot of stakeholders between clients and vendors and everything else that I think it can really penetrate to a lot of different places. So that's what I'm really excited about going into 2020 and building. And maybe we'll get back together and we can report back on some of the great ideas that come out of that.
Tim Cynova:
Sounds great. David, thank you so much for the time today. Thanks so much for your openness, your vulnerability, your sharing the ideas that you're wrestling with and for being on the podcast.
David Reuter:
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Tim, and thank you for elevating these conversations and this work, because I think that's an important piece and big step in what we're all trying to do here. So appreciate your energy for it as well.
Tim Cynova:
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep8: Conversation with Marc Mannella (EP.61)
In episode eight of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Marc Mannella formerly CEO of KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools and currently a consultant working with clients that range from professional sports teams, to charter schools, to non-profits.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
April 25, 2022
In episode eight of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Marc Mannella formerly CEO of KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools and currently a consultant working with clients that range from professional sports teams, to charter schools, to non-profits.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
MARC MANNELLA is the President of Mannella Consulting Services, specializing in leadership coaching, and optimizing learning environments in schools, non-profits, and sport. Prior to his work consulting, Mannella had a 20-year career in education; first as a science teacher, then as founder and Principal of KIPP Philadelphia Charter School, a college preparatory middle school in North Philadelphia. After five years at KIPP as principal, he led KIPP Philadelphia’s expansion to a five-school network serving nearly 2000 students in grades K-12, overseeing all aspects of school and network operations as KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools’ CEO. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and Biology from the University of Rochester, and an M.Ed. in Education Leadership from National Louis University. Find out more about Marc here.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Marc Mannella:
So I led a cohort-based learning, a process for emerging leaders in education in Philly here. I asked people in November or something, I was like, "Hey, people are building Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa wishlists on Amazon. So tell me your best leadership book, your favorite book about leadership." And people are writing Good to Great, and all this stuff that you'd sort of expect them to write, except one of my participants wrote Horton Hears a Who. I thought it was a joke, I'm like, "Get the heck out of here. Go ahead, explain, Horton Hears a Who. Lay it on me. I don't get it."
Marc Mannella:
And what she said was, "Think about that book for a second. Horton can hear something, he becomes aware of something nobody else understands, nobody else is aware of. And now he's got a decision to make, do you go on and be popular, make the easy decision to say, 'There's nothing I can do, bro.' Or do you put yourself on the line? Do you put your credibility at risk? Do you put your own personal safety at risk and say, 'No, no, no. Now that I know this thing, I can't unsee it, and the moral thing to do, the right thing to do is to stand up to power and say stop.'"
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. A podcast about, well that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I introduce the series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic not by white guys can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work, when asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways.
Tim Cynova:
Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti oppression work, others say they approach it more through a justice lens, others inclusion and belonging, still others equity and impact. Through these conversations we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations, that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss, what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging.
Tim Cynova:
And since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with. On today's conversation, I'm joined by Marc Mannella. For 15 years Marc was the CEO of KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools, and he's currently an independent consultant working with clients that range from professional sports teams to charter schools, to nonprofits. You can read more about Marc and his bio that's included in the episode description, so in the interest of time, let's get going. Marc, welcome to the podcast.
Marc Mannella:
Thanks so much for having me Tim. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. Me too. So how do you typically introduce yourself and the work that you do?
Marc Mannella:
Yeah. So my name's Marc Mannella and after a 20-year career in education, about a couple years ago I set out to start my own independent consulting practice. In that practice, my work is broken down into two different books. I've got nonprofit schools consulting work, which has a lot to do with organizational dynamics and setting up strong learning environments, and other executive leadership type work, like executive leadership coaching, et cetera. And then I've stumbled into this other piece of work, which is working with professional sports teams and high level athletics organizations, including the Cleveland Guardians, the Brooklyn Nets, the United States Olympics Committee.
Marc Mannella:
And with those clients, I'm really helping them to apply the lessons that we've learned both through Cognos psychology, but also through how schools have over the last 20, 50 years. And applying those into a coaching setting into a sports setting because coaching has a ton of teaching in it. And the lessons that our very best teachers can teach us, about how to help people be able to do new things, is something that can be applied very directly into a sports context. I am split into two different roles and I enjoy them both equally, so I really love the fact that in this moment in my career I get to do both things.
Tim Cynova:
What does that look like from the coaching context? What does it look like when you're applying that learning from the education context?
Marc Mannella:
It's actually really similar to teacher coaching. When I would coach teachers, I would walk into a classroom. We have established that there's content that needs to be taught, but also there's pedagogical approaches that we want to see our teachers take to help our kids learn. I think that when we think about what great teaching should look like, there's lots of different ideas for that. I think there's still this antiquity at some level that the teacher is standing in the front of a room, with straight of desks with kids sitting with their hands folded, paying rapt attention to the teacher. The teacher knows every answer is telling the kids all the things they need to know, the kids are remembering it, and then they go off to be doctors, lawyers, and astronauts, right? That is not what great teaching should look like.
Marc Mannella:
Great teaching needs to engage the learner. Great teaching needs to build on yesterday's lesson and anticipate where they're going to go tomorrow. Great teaching needs to assess what the students can do and then adjust when these 14 can do this thing now, but these six cannot, what do I do as the teacher? Well, now let's shift that and put it to a coaching context. I've got a team full of baseball players, there is an idea about what they should be able to base running wise. And so I can't go into a session with a bunch of players and say, "Today, I'm going to teach you base running," that's way too general. And what are you going to do to teach it? Are you just going to talk to them about base running? Or are you actually going to say, "Okay, today we're going to talk about secondary leads. And we're going to talk about the right timing on taking a secondary lead, we're going to talk about the right distance from the bag, and we're going to talk about how do you adjust that to specific game situations."
Marc Mannella:
That's an objective, that's the same thing that I want my 4th grade math teacher doing. Well, my 4th grade math teacher they're not there to teach division, they're there to teach, "Today, we are going to divide two digit by three digit numbers and we are going to use the X method," or whatever. You have to boil down with some real specificity what it is you're going to teach today. I might coach a teacher how to do that on Tuesday, and then I might be working with a coach on Wednesday, and it's the same thing, there's a huge amount of overlap. Now, look, I'm not a baseball coach. I don't know the answer to any of those questions I just said about secondary leads, but I also was coaching Spanish teachers and I don't speak Spanish. I was coaching calculus teachers and I don't remember a lick of calculus. The fundamentals about what we do as teachers, it stays the same. So I've been able to convince enough people of that in pro sports, that they've hired me to help our coaches in that way.
Tim Cynova:
That's a really cool application of one sector's learning and approach to another's. And it makes me think of the work we're talking about today on this conversation. How can we apply this frame to what we're doing and to organizational design, how we show been community, I guess it's the transitive property of the work.
Marc Mannella:
Absolutely. When I think back to my undergraduate career, I thought I was pre-med. I was getting this biology degree and at some point I realized I didn't want to be pre-med anymore, and this biology degree was not really going to be that useful, and I added a psych second major, and I'm so glad that I did. I think that the fundamental underpinnings that I culled from psychology and the fact that I'm not afraid of the cognitive science literature.
Marc Mannella:
I can dig into Kahneman's Thinking Fast & Slow and it's a slog, but it's not Greek to me, I understand it. And then one of the things that I've been able to do over the years is I've developed an ability to explain relatively complex things, relatively straightforward manner, and how do you apply this theory in real life? And I think that helped me in leadership, I think that helped me as a teacher, because I started my career as a classroom teacher, biology teacher. And I think it now helps me in this second act that I found myself in where I'm explaining these cognitive science principles, cognitive psychology principles to a professional basketball coach. There's a lot of that transitive property that I think is relevant to the work that I do.
Tim Cynova:
You're taking the learnings from your college days and applying those through the different settings, which is I think really exciting to see how it might impact different venues.
Marc Mannella:
It is amazing when you think about the value of a psych degree and just in general, I suppose the value of the humanities and the value of the liberal arts degree, it has so much to do with your ability to understand the world around you, and I think about empathy as this superpower. Your ability to anticipate how is this action that I take, how is this sentence that I say, how is how I'm showing up, how is all of this being read by different people? And I think as you think about your ability to be empathetic and how important that is as a leader, there's so many different applications in so many different ways that'll impact your actions.
Marc Mannella:
I can show up at spring training and I'll already know that there are going to be some baseball coaches that are resistant, because I topped out at high school baseball and I've coached my kids' little league team, but that is not the same thing that these guys do. And so how do I anticipate and assess and adjust what I'm doing to try and be useful, understanding what it is that might be their self-talk or the narrative in their head, and how do I get past that in order to sort of break through and be of use. I think about empathy a lot and trying to understand the impact I'm having on other people.
Tim Cynova:
Talking about how you show up, can you take us through the arc of what led to two white guys sitting down for a podcast to talk about race and racism?
Marc Mannella:
Okay. Where do I begin? I suppose I'll begin at the beginning. Grew up in upstate New York, progressive-ish, not all the way progressive, but a family that at the time voted strongly democrat. My dad was a research scientist, my mom stayed at home, and then after my sibling and I grew up, she started a small business. We were very much raised to be color blind, we didn't call it that because we never talked about it. But we were good white people who believed that black people were just as good as us and could be anything and so could we, and there was no difference. And it was an embarrassingly long time and far away into my career before I understood how that view in and of itself was problematic.
Marc Mannella:
But I think that being raised that way and also being raised in a manner which had a strong social justice underpinning, so we always were fighting for the little guy. And the idea that there is fairness and fairness matters, equality matters, and we should be actively trying to make the world a better place in that image. As you fast forward through my college years and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do and I graduate. And as I mentioned a moment ago, I'm not pre-med anymore. I was very much attracted to Teach For America because I said to myself, "Look, this is great, I can teach biology. I know this stuff. I liked biology back in high school, so I could teach high school biology." And I could go teach at a suburban school where I grew up or I could go teach in a private school, but really what an opportunity to go teach where they need great teachers to go teach in an inner city or in a rural community.
Marc Mannella:
I ended up being placed in Baltimore, I got in, I ended up being placed in Baltimore, Maryland back in the late '90s. As a 22 year old guy trying to process that experience, it was really just eye opening to me. I had barely driven through the parts of town growing up and in my 22 years prior that I was now going to every day where I was working, where I was trying to become accepted by a community and a member of a community, where everybody was of a different race than me. The school I was placed in was almost a 100% African American, this faculty was almost a 100% African American. And so as a white guy race was all around me, but I still wasn't ready to call it that, to talk about that. You talk about the economic aspect, "Well, that's not because they're black it's because they're poor."
Marc Mannella:
You talk about the cultural aspect, I think that was really when I started to get my first understanding that this is so systemic. Because 23 year old me would go home to upstate new into the suburbs and at Christmas parties would be talking about what I was doing. And there were all kinds of problematic attitudes that my parents friends would have, where they're like, "Wow, you're in Teach For America, that's incredible." And I think they really saw it almost as missionary work, whereas Teach For America very much is trying to not set it up that way. Lots of people and I think in the beginning, myself included didn't understand a different way to think about it. It felt like I'm a have, I go to a have not and I'm going to teach them because I have something that they do not.
Marc Mannella:
I have an education, I have social capital, I have all these things. As I'm trying to process this, the way I started to explain it to my parents' friends was, "There's nothing "wrong" with my kids. Kids are awesome. My kids are beautiful, they're brilliant. They have been criminally under-taught, that's not their fault, it's just not and it's not their parents' fault." As a society we've decided that those kids in West Baltimore don't matter as much as I did, or at least that's what it felt like to 23 year old me, you start to try and make sense of that. And as I continued on in my career, I taught West Baltimore for a couple years. I moved to Philadelphia, I taught North Philadelphia at a different...now I was at a district school in Baltimore, then I went to a charter school in Philadelphia because 25 year old me says, "Wow, the system is what's screwed up." And so maybe a charter school being still a public school that serves all kids, but is not part of this big bureaucratic school district.
Marc Mannella:
Maybe a charter school you can get away from that and we're leaving the system behind, were independent, but I saw the same stuff. It wasn't "better", it was different, there was still a system, even though the system was a principal and assistant principal, two administrators, there were still decisions being made that I could very squarely see were not being made in the best interest of kids. And so now 26, 27 year old me is trying to make sense of that, I got this idea in my head that, "You know what, I could start a school." And if I started a school, it wouldn't be like that.
Marc Mannella:
I found KIPP or KIPP found me, I'm not sure which, and I applied for what they called the Fisher fellowship. The Fisher Fellowship is a one year training that teaches teachers to become principles of charter schools in the community that they're currently working as teachers. So the National KIPP Foundation provided the training, provided technical support, helped me write a charter application, helped me design a curriculum that was aligned to Pennsylvania state standards and all of that. KIPP now has 220, 230 schools across the country, but at the time I opened up the 16th one or something, so this is back in 2002. KIPP had this track record that was proving something very different was possible for kids in inner city and rural communities, what we at the time at KIPP called educationally underserved communities. Trying to get away from a deficit mindset, there's nothing wrong with our community other than the fact that some system has decided not to invest in it.
Marc Mannella:
And so we opened that school and for the next 15 years, I led that school first as principal of our flagship school starting in 2003. Then for 10 years, I led our expansion efforts because our initial school had a pretty good deal of success, and we started getting this massive wait list. So now there's like thousands of kids who want to get into our school, but because we have a cap imposed upon us as part of our charter agreement with the district, basically we have a contract with the district that says, "You can have this many kids." And so now we have thousands of kids who want to get in and so we started adding more schools. So we put new charter applications in to add additional KIPP Philadelphia schools. What started with 90 5th graders in an abandoned community center in North Philadelphia turned into over the 15 years I was there, six schools, K to 12 serving or 2000 kids, we've got over 200 employees.
Marc Mannella:
We're running a $30 million budget, I'm raising about four or $5 million a year to supplement the public revenue that we bring in as a charter school, all to try and provide a different experience for our kids. And our kids found a great deal of success in that. But KIPP had its detractors too, some of them outside of KIPP looking in and we had loyal dissents inside of KIPPP as well. And there was a real tension that we were trying to navigate at KIPP, and I'll speak specifically to KIPP Philadelphia, the school I was running as principal, and then the network I was running as CEO. We were college preparatory schools. We were designed to help our kids. And we actually used the term back in the early 2000s, pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Marc Mannella:
We said that explicitly, we said it to the families we were recruiting, "We're going to provide you with this opportunity. You're going to have fantastic teachers. You're going to have as much resources we can bring. We're going to go on field trips every month. We're going to go on a big end of year field trip at the end, it's going to be a culminating experience for all of your lessons, it's going to be academic in nature." We had a track record from the original flagship schools that we were building in Philadelphia that says, "You are going to be way more likely to go to and through college if you finish with us." But we had this inherent tension and one of my students, one of my first class of students, when four years in when she was an 8th grader about to go off to high school, she asked this very pointed question, Dina.
Marc Mannella:
She asked this question in the middle of a class and she was like, "Mr. Mannella, why do you hate the way we talk?" I said, "What do you mean? I'm not following." She's like, "You're constantly telling us to speak proper grammar. So what are you trying to say about the way that we talk now? What's not proper about it?" I tried to give this over intellectualized response about what at the time we called standard American vernacular English versus African American vernacular English, "And there's nothing wrong with the way that you talk. But if we are trying to prepare you for a world that is going to judge you by things that maybe aren't important, we're basically trying to teach you a cheat code to-"
Marc Mannella:
And I didn't have these words at the time, and even if I did, I'm not sure if I would've said them to an 8th grader or not, I don't know, "... but basically to grow up in a white supremacist world." It's like, "We're trying to set you up to thrive in this world that itself is broken." And so how do you actually do that? I think we were blind to that question in the early years. And then at some point our eyes became opened to that question and we started grappling with it in real terms. I'm still grappling with that question, that's how I got here with another white guy talking about race.
Tim Cynova:
I'm always struck by the phrase pull yourself up at your own bootstraps. My dad was a Lutheran pastor and I distinctly remember a sermon that he had when I was a kid where he pointed out, you actually go down when you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, when you're pulling on your boots you're actually moving down toward your boots, and decided to offer a podcast episode.
Marc Mannella:
And again, I understand now, bootstrap theory is super problematic. I didn't understand that in 2005 and I should have, but I didn't.
Tim Cynova:
We don't know what we don't know sometimes and the learning, and we're part of an affinity group and I've talked to several other guys who are part of the white men for Racial Justice. We were recording this in late January 2022. And last year in 2021 every month we would take a different lens, and look at the racial justice work and one of the months was spent around education. And there was some really fascinating research that came out of it, there was a lot of reflection. I'm curious for you who has spent so much time in education, thinking about this intersection, was there anything new that came out of that time for you? Any ahas that might have helped you reframe or think, "Oh God, 26 year old me, that's what was happening."
Marc Mannella:
Off the top of my head what comes up to me is less out something brand new and more about stuff I had forgotten, I stepped down as the head of KIPP Philadelphia in 2018, so it's been three and a half years now where I've been on my own. And I think I've just forgotten certain things I take certain things for granted that people just understand, Charter schools being one of the big examples. I think that in our group that learning month was kicked off by Sharif El-Mekki a friend of mine, who is a very strong African American leader in the education sector here in Philadelphia. He's dedicated his life and his career now is focused very much on getting more African American teachers in classrooms across the entire state of Pennsylvania and across the entire country and importantly, not just in African American neighborhoods.
Marc Mannella:
There's some crazy statistic about there's 500 school districts in the state of Pennsylvania, and something like 460 of them or something don't have a single African American teacher in the classroom. When you think about Pennsylvania you think about maybe Philly and Pittsburgh, but so much of Pennsylvania is not Philly and Pittsburgh. He's a strong advocate for charter schools, and he made connections to the Freedom School movement that he himself went to Freedom Schools, which was basically what we would think of now as an independent school, but it was very much set up around stressing black empowerment. He then led a charter school for 10 or 15 years or something before getting into this education training work now. And I remember going into a breakout room after that, and one of the people said, "So I'm confused. I thought charter school rules were bad."
Marc Mannella:
And you're reminded that progressive politics and the democratic party have very much taken on the points of view and education that the teachers union has taken on. And since most charter schools are not unionized, there is an oppositional narrative out there, charter school bad, district school good. Because charter school non-union's workforce because charter school takes money away dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But I just forgot that and I think Betsy DeVos did a lot of damage in that regard, because as Trump's education secretary she strongly touted charter schools.
Marc Mannella:
And I remember at the time being like, "Please stop about charter schools. Stop. You're not helping. You're making this way worse. I'm not interested in your sport. Thanks." But there is like anything, I've been in this sector for so long, I think I've forgotten so much. And one of the things that was opaque to me or I had just forgotten about, I guess, is someone who's not working in education, looking from the outside and how they could hear that narrative charter bad. Like anything, we could have found a different speaker who would be a prominent education voice, African American education voice Philadelphia who would say charter bad, and the answer as always I think is it depends.
Tim Cynova:
One of the things that resonated for me from his presentation and from that discussion was around harm. We talk about this a lot where people don't want to make mistakes, but you actually are already making the mistakes, what happens in the learning is you realize the mistakes you're making or the harm you're inflicting on people of color, that really resonated for me, as well as the data around at what point do you need to start talking about race and racism with kids? And it was that setup where do you start in 5th grade or middle school, or is it earlier in 5th grade? It keeps going back and back earlier and earlier to be like, "Preschool would not be too early to start talking about race and racism."
Marc Mannella:
When do you start talking about math? Don't teach a kindergarten calculus, don't do that. But you should be developing number sense, when do you teach grammar? Well, we're not going to whip out, what is it William Strunk or whatever, but we are going to identify numbers. One of the points I think Sharif made that night was, "White people are the people who are asking themselves, 'When do we teach about race?' People of color are talking about it all the time, it's constant, it is an obligation of a parent of color." It was sort of, I believe, and I don't want to misrepresent what he was saying. But my memory of that conversation is that he was basically saying, "We don't have a choice, we're talking about it." There's a privilege even in asking the question that we have to recognize, we talked about race with our students at KIPP from kindergarten on.
Marc Mannella:
But it was very intentional, just like a math curriculum, it was very intentional around how it was discussed. One of the things that you have to be conscious of is at KIPP, we went on a journey in terms of the demographics of our workforce, the demographics of our teaching core. By the time I left we were about 55% people of color, 45% white. But that was an intentional effort that we embarked upon around maybe 2012, 2013, because we were more 70/30, white, non-white. One of the things that you have to be thinking about in terms of doing harm is how are we setting up our teachers, how are we preparing our teachers to talk about race with our kids? To be clear, everybody needs that training because you want to teach these lessons in a way that everybody can receive it and everybody can learn from it.
Marc Mannella:
Yes, our white teachers may have been less comfortable talking about race, may not have been, no one's a monolith, no demographic group is a monolith. But how do we provide that support and it starts back even previous, how do you convince everybody that it's important? How do you convince people that it matters? I think a lot organizations both that I'm currently with my clients, but also just my friends work for, et cetera, had this reckoning around what happened at George Floyd's murder, what happened in May, June of 2020. Our reckoning at KIPP came much earlier, we had a similar moment around Michael Brown's murder in Ferguson, Missouri, that for us sort of launched the type of action that now I think lots of other organizations are seeing launched in the wake of George Floyd.
Marc Mannella:
And so we've always been a little bit out in front, although we are certainly behind other places that either never needed to have a reckoning because they understood it from the get go or had their reckoning around Trayvon Martin's murder. There are plenty of moments where we could have realized it at KIPP. There's so much there to unpack around how do you teach teachers to teach about race. Certainly we could tie this all into what's happening in Florida and Virginia, and these states that are passing these critical race theory laws, which are basically banning these conversations.
Tim Cynova:
It's reminiscent of a quote while white people are busy learning, black people are dying, and that the world doesn't stop while white people are reading Me And White Supremacy and all. Really great books, but it's a lot of catch that needs to happen for white folks here.
Marc Mannella:
That's right. And as leaders, your obligation to get up to speed now, yesterday is profound. And that is something that I am still learning, but am trying to get better at conveying to clients who still are maybe not thinking about this, or not thinking about it in that way. We're still thinking about diversity, equity, inclusion work, thinking about that as like stuff I have to check the box, so that I can get back to what's important. As a white guy who has access to power in these organizations as I'm brought in as a consultant, trying to find my voice and to be consistent and consistent and persistent and be heard. I come in my hair on fire and I'm going to be dismissed, but I feel that hair on fire urgency around this issue, so how do I show up? Again, that's something I'm constantly trying to be metacognitive about.
Tim Cynova:
I imagine part of it is in how you talk about the work. I know from your one pager about consulting, you did some work around centralized versus decentralized, leadership and decision making. Part of my work is also around sharing leadership, power and decision making. And so it seems like a hot topic right now or is a hot topic right now. And you can talk about that without talking about race and racism and oppression. But in doing that, you're helping reframe and adjust who holds power, who holds decision making, who's involved in a process. I imagine that's somehow how you sneak some of this work into maybe organizations who aren't ready yet.
Marc Mannella:
Yeah. You're making me think about, so I led a cohort based learning process for emerging leaders in education in Philly here. I asked people in November or something, I was like, "Hey, people are building Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa wishlists on Amazon. So tell me your best leadership book, your favorite book about leadership." And people are writing Good to Great, and all the stuff that you'd sort of expect them to write, except one of my participants wrote Horton Hears a Who. And I kind of thought it was a joke, I'm like, "Get the heck out of here. Go ahead, explain, Horton Hears a Who. Lay it on me. I don't get it."
Marc Mannella:
And what she said was, "Think about that book for a second. Horton can hear something, he becomes aware of something nobody else understands, nobody else is aware of. And now he's got a decision to make, do you go on and be popular, make the easy decision to sort of say, 'There's nothing I can do, bro.' Or do you put yourself on the line? Do you put your credibility at risk? Do you put your own personal safety at risk and say, 'No, no, no, now that I know this thing, I can't unsee it. And the moral thing to do, the right thing to do is to stand up to power and say stop.'" She was like, "That's leadership." I was like, "Oh man, you are right. What a great call."
Marc Mannella:
Honestly, that little quote, that moment, I'm thinking about this 10 years later, but that really shifted for me the way I thought about my job in many ways. As the leader, it's your job to listen, as the leader it's your job to make sure that you see unintended consequences of actions. As a leader it's your job to make sure that you are aware and in tune with all stakeholders and how your decisions are impacting them. So as I think about whether it's decentralization, centralization frameworks or decision rights, matrices, or whatever it is that I'm sort of working with a client on, there's big part of that around leadership which comes down to who are you listening to?
Marc Mannella:
Who has a seat at the table? And then from there you can go on to who gets promoted, who has power and what does power mean? Who gets budget allocated to their projects? And then you can start to really start to unpack. And this is the work that we started to do after Michael Brown's murder at KIPP Philadelphia. We looked at our demographics, but we went one step further and again, this was guided very much by work... KIPP naturally brought in folks at Teach For America who were way ahead on this stuff, at least ahead of KIPP, and they explained what they did at TFA. This idea of we're not just looking for the overall percentages of male versus female or white versus non-white or whatever else, however the way you could slice demographics.
Marc Mannella:
But then we go one cut deeper and now we're looking for, okay, so this is all your employees. What about instructional staff versus non-instructional staff? What about leaders versus people who aren't leaders? Do you see gaps? What about inside departments? We figured out we didn't realize we were running four schools at the time and we had something like 14 math teachers, and we didn't realize that we had one African American math teacher and 13 white math teachers. We just didn't realize it and it's like, "Oh-" But if you look at our social studies department, or heck if you look at our janitorial and cafeteria staff, so you can't just say overall employees, that's not enough, you have to go deeper. Another thing we talked about was who's getting promoted because we realized that the leadership ranks, we had a over representation of white leaders in our schools.
Marc Mannella:
Immediately, it comes down to so what, now what? What are we going to do about this? We happened to take really intentional efforts around saying, "Okay, so what are we going to do about that?" And part of it we learned, and again, we learned this from Teach For America was around who has a seat to the table and who gets time with me, who gets time with the principal. In my mind, my door is always open, anybody can come in and talk to me when that door is open. If I'm sitting there, I'll put down what I'm doing and talk to you. If I go into the teacher workroom, I go into the cafeteria, I hang out after school, before school, I want to be present, I want to be visible to my teachers, but the people who take me up on those opportunities tended to be white.
Marc Mannella:
And then if you happen to be in my office, when I'm dealing with something, I would always pull you in, but you're not in my office unless you feel comfortable enough to walk in the door and I had to deal with the hard reality, that people were way more likely to walk in the door if they looked like me. There was something I was doing, there was some signal I was sending. I've had the good fortune of getting to know Dan Coyle a little bit over the years, author of Culture Code and Talent Code, and he talks about belonging cues. And this idea that organizational cultures send signals to certain people that they belong. And you may not be thinking about it and you may not be aware of it, but you are, if you're a leader you're sending signals to people about whether or not they belong.
Marc Mannella:
How as leaders do we become more aware of the signals that we're sending, because I think inclusion it's still often cited in DEI work. But really this comes down to belonging, if you feel like you belong, you're more likely to bring your full self to work, you're more likely to contribute in ways where we get to benefit from the diversity of our team. These are the things that we were thinking about at KIPP. And these are the things that I'm trying to with these experiences that I had, that I'm trying out to help my clients sort of work, and do it in a way where I might feel the hair on fire urgency, but I'm not coming of as so confrontational in their face that they can't hear it, which is hard for me.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. Because you feel that urgency.
Marc Mannella:
I feel the urgency Horton felt.
Tim Cynova:
Currently, in our affinity group we've been working through Layla Saad's, Me And White Supremacy. And in my own journaling, I was reflecting on the first time I taught my leadership and team building course at the new school. To make a long story short, I was given two days before I started teaching that course and I had to build the syllabus in two days. So I pulled 15 books off the bookshelf, I grabbed all the articles that were seminal leadership articles, and it wasn't until the second year when I was teaching that course, when I was going back through the syllabus that I realized every single author was white, and probably 95% of them were men. And it was just like those were the books on my shelf that I had, and then, "All right, so who else do I seek out? What other books are out there besides white guys writing about leadership?"
Marc Mannella:
Yeah. Well, Dr. Seuss was a white guy with his own problematic history, might I add. But no, I think that that's something that I think about a lot too. I'm now going out of my way to read non-white authors like a lot of people I think are. I read this great article recently about science fiction, which I like. And basically the article put forth just this idea that when you think of science fiction, you're probably thinking like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, these folks who've been elevated as the seminal science fiction authors, but they're all white dudes.
Marc Mannella:
And when you read science fiction by someone who's not a white guy by someone who's not American, science fiction is different. What they're writing is different, has a different take because so much of what you right, is so informed by your personal experience and your history. So I've got Octavia Butler on my nightstand right now and I'm super jazzed to read that book, because I have never just gone that route. Just one example of a thousand probably of something I was blind to, but I hear it, and I've thought, "Of course. Sure. I need to read some science fiction by someone who's not an old white dude."
Tim Cynova:
We've covered a lot of exciting ground belonging, inclusion, power dynamics. Often think of as you were talking about taking a look at your organization and who's in what roles, I think of that as the financial balance sheet. You might not like your balance sheet, you might not like your cash position, but that is what it is, and then at least you know, "Where to from here, what can we do about this?"
Marc Mannella:
Yes. 100%. And I think people lose that sense. I think this comes back to white fragility a little bit. This idea of like, "I'm actually afraid to know because it's going to be so bad and then that means I'm bad." At some point you have to be courageous enough to say, "Okay, this is what it is and shame on me if I don't do something to improve it." I was a part of a multiracial group that was thinking about how to tackle issues of white supremacy culture. And we took a trip to Richmond and some of the guys from the affinity group that you and I are now in Tim, we're in that group. We did the Richmond slave trail, we had a local pastor, black pastor tell the story of the first slaves. And we walked the exact path that those people walked and we're trying to put ourselves in their shoes, and think about what that would've felt like and think about what that would've been.
Marc Mannella:
It is this unbelievable experience, emotionally exhausting, you're basically crying the entire time, at least I was. And I remember we carpooled there, and so like now I'm in the car with two black women who I basically just met. We were just silent and then we started listening to music and then the one woman says, "How we all feeling?" And I'm just like, "I just feel this deep guilt and shame. I'm ashamed to be white right now." And what she said to me, I'll never forget. She was like, "Well, that doesn't do any good. Why do you feel shame?" She's like, "I feel shame too, because I'm a human. And that humans could do that to other humans, that's embarrassing, that's unbelievable to me. But you should only feel shame if now that you've thought about this, you don't go do something about it."
Marc Mannella:
I needed that in that moment, I think I probably knew that also and I heard that before, but in that moment it was just so in my face and in my bones, and my whole body was just wrecked from the experience. I was just so grateful that she said that, we've talked a little bit in our group Tim about it is not black people's jobs to teach us. And I will say that when you're fortunate enough to be in a position where someone does listen, listen. I listen to that and I think about that. And again, bring this back to all this CTR stuff, and how these laws are being written about nothing can ever be taught that makes you feel guilt or shame. And I think about, "Man, if you even think that's the point of these lessons about race, then you're so far from understanding what it is that we're trying to convey, and what we're trying to teach."
Marc Mannella:
The point is once you know this, once you see this, once you've become aware of these structures of this white supremacist system that we live in, once you've been unplugged from the matrix, you can't take the blue pill and just go back to sleep. You have to take the red pill and you have to figure out what you're going to do about it. As I think about this now I try to suppress the shame, and now my shame is reserved for when I know something is wrong and I don't do anything.
Tim Cynova:
Marc, that's really powerful. We've come up to our time. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your vulnerability. Thank you so much for your work and guidance on this as a mentor and colleague in this journey together, and thanks for being on the podcast.
Marc Mannella:
My pleasure Tim, thank you for inviting me and thank you for using your platform to shine a light on this a bit. I'm grateful for the opportunity and also grateful for your work. Thank you.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep7: Conversation with Raphael Bemporad & Bryan Miller (EP.60)
In episode seven of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) and Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer) of BBMG, a branding and social impact consultancy.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
April 10, 2022
In episode seven of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) and Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer) of BBMG, a branding and social impact consultancy.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films. Read Rha Goddess's "An Open Letter To My Beloved White Male Allies," mentioned in this episode.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
RAPHAEL BEMPORAD As Founding Partner of BBMG, Raphael unites branding, sustainability and innovation to help organizations create sustainable growth and positive impact in the world. An expert in brand strategy, public affairs and social innovation, Raphael is a passionate champion for a new approach to branding that’s driven by empathy, collaboration, shared values and mutual relationships.
“I’m a passionate champion for a new approach to branding that places our humanity at the center. At BBMG, we help clients unlock the human truths in their brands and unleash the humanity in their businesses so they win hand in hand with the people they serve,” Bemporad says. “We believe the imperative of our generation is to unite the power of business with the meaning and influence of brands to shape our aspirations, behaviors and relationships for a more just and sustainable future.”
He has directed recent branding and marketing programs for clients such as Adidas, CLIF Bar, Disney, Earthbound Farm, Eileen Fisher, Estée Lauder, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal Paris, NBC Universal, Nespresso, Target, The North Face and Walmart. He has also worked with many leading nonprofits including ASPCA, Giffords, Greenpeace, OceanX, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Rainforest Alliance and Urban Teachers, as well as the Case Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Raphael also has an extensive background in political communications, getting his start as a press aide to Texas Governor Ann W. Richards. He also served as communications director for the Texas Democratic Party, as communications director for Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston), and as press secretary for U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas).
Raphael received his BA in Philosophy with honors from the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves as an adjunct professor of marketing and communications at the NYU Stern School of Business, and he sits on the advisory boards of Sustainable Brands and the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business.
BRYAN MILLER spent twelve years on Wall Street, navigating between theory, strategy, and execution as well as the ever-present unknown. He’s our go-to problem solver and helps us all to thrive, as people and professionals. Bryan is also BBMG’s main ambassador to the B Corp community, and a Founding Board Member of B Local NYC. Superpower: Radical transparency and empathy.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Raphael Bemporad:
I think it just is an opportunity to reflect on why we show up, in whatever role we're in, in whatever context. At BBMG, we have a series of aspirations, rooted in why we created the business in the first place. And they all came from my dad, the rabbi.
Raphael Bemporad:
It was really lovely, it's literally the napkin before our business was born, and we were writing down what my dad was encouraging us to think about in creating a company. Like my dad knew anything about business as a rabbi, but boy, he knows a lot about humanity.
Raphael Bemporad:
And he said, number one, "Whatever is most deeply creative in you, and each of the team members, that that would be nourished every day." Big seed creativity, not just the design team, but the creativity that connects you to the creativity of the universe.
Raphael Bemporad:
Two, that you work with people who share your values, that ultimately, what's important to you is important to them. Third, that you're learning and growing every day, and that who you are today, literally, professionally, personally, you find yourself expanding over time, through challenge and mastery in the flow state, like you're really evolving.
Raphael Bemporad:
Fourth, that you can use our precious time on Earth to make an impact in the lives of others, and in the community, and finally, that you can make a good living. And I think that if those are why we might want to create a company, or show up at a company, I think the reality is, there's no way to be in integrity with those things, unless we're facing the context of white supremacy, and structural inequities and racism.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini-series, called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism.
Tim Cynova:
While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out Episode 54 of our podcast cast, where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I, introduce the series, and frame these conversations.
Tim Cynova:
All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work.
Tim Cynova:
When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens, others, inclusion and belonging, still others, equity and impact.
Tim Cynova:
Through these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations, that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been the most challenging, and since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead, and the ones they work with.
Tim Cynova:
On today's conversation. I'm joined by Raphael Bemporad, and Bryan Miller. Raphael is the founding partner, and Bryan is the CFO of BBMG, a branding and social impact consultancy. You can read more about each and their bios included in the description to this episode.
Tim Cynova:
In the interests of time, let's get going. Bryan and Raphael, welcome to the podcast.
Bryan Miller:
Hi, Tim. Thanks.
Raphael Bemporad:
Hey, Tim. Great to see you.
Tim Cynova:
I'm really excited for this conversation, because it is the first time I've talked to two people at the same organization. So I know this is both a personal journey for all of us, and I'm really excited to see how we're intersecting, how you're intersecting at BBMG, working on this together.
Tim Cynova:
Before we dive in, let's just start with, how do you typically introduce yourselves in the work you do? And you decide who goes first here.
Raphael Bemporad:
Tim, it's great to be together. And I'm thrilled that Bryan and I could share the work and conversation with you.
Raphael Bemporad:
BBMG is a brand and social impact consultancy, and the way that we would describe our work, we've been around almost 19 years. And the way we think about branding is quite profound, in the sense that more than a brand being a logo, or a message image experience, of course, which it is, we're really conceptualizing brand as the systems we design, and the stories that we tell.
Raphael Bemporad:
When you think about brand as the expression of a business model, of value chain relationships with every stakeholder, and how you create value, and brands being the expression of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our sense of identity, aspiration, belonging, community, behavior, norms and culture, brands become a vehicle for transformation. It allows us to literally redesign the systems and retell all the stories that allow us to create the future that we want.
Raphael Bemporad:
That's the work that we do, with many businesses and mission driven brands, like B-Corporations, larger companies that are increasingly embedding sustainability, social justice equity into their business models, and into their communications, as well as many nonprofits and philanthropy. We believe we're at a moment, as we'll be describing all day today, or in our conversation, of not just shifting preferences in the world, but changing paradigms. And we believe brands can be a vehicle of that transformation.
Bryan Miller:
I can't do it better than Raphael about BBMG, but just to introduce myself, it's great to be here, Tim. I'm Bryan Miller. I am BBMG's CFO. And I've been working with Raphael, for now, almost six and a half years.
Bryan Miller:
My background is predominantly on Wall Street, and I had met Raphael and he told me about, "What if we could create this world together?" He painted this vision of, "What does capitalism look like? What does the future of business look like? And how do we do that through brands?"
Bryan Miller:
Frankly, brand, to me, in the past, was just something that's sat on the balance sheet. But now, I get to see it and live it every single day, which is really exciting. So this work has been really meaningful for me, not just personally, but also, to see the transformation, and what we're making with each business and each client that we work with. It's really exciting.
Bryan Miller:
I also do a lot of work with the culture. I sit in the precipice of finance, legal, HR, those things. And I think it's really exciting, because we also have a culture behind us that is able to fuel all the things that we want to do for our clients, but also give us the energy internally, to be able to take on work like this, specifically, speaking about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Tim Cynova:
So you both mentioned different aspects of your work, social justice, equity, inclusion, diversity. When you think about the work, I've talked to a lot of people for this mini-series who define that differently.
Tim Cynova:
Anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, justice. What are the primary lens is that you two use, when both thinking about this personally, and then with BBMG?
Raphael Bemporad:
Bryan, perhaps you could share a little bit about our aspiration to become a multicultural organization, and I can build from there.
Bryan Miller:
Absolutely. I mean, personally, I would see this as anti-racism. We're just looking at the historical context, where we have built a society and culture and systems around the idea of being racist. So what I see it as, is being anti-racist to undo it.
Bryan Miller:
At BBMG, what we're trying to do is, we're creating a multicultural organization, using this framework, of how do you not just be compliant, but how do you become anti-racist, through not only the way that you are staffed, but also in the work that we're doing for our clients? I think our aspiration, really, is to be an anti-racist learning organization that is on a path to progress.
Bryan Miller:
One thing that's really helped us think about it is, here's where we're going, in terms of what we want to be as an organization, and the steps to get there. But it's progress over perfection. That's something that's been guiding us is, it's not something that's going to be easy. It is something that we need to be vulnerable with, but we want to continue to make progress.
Bryan Miller:
What we're doing is looking at it through the lens of, for ourselves. So what is our own path, and personal journeys, and learning to uncover, what is the real work?
Bryan Miller:
Also, what can we do for the business? So that's looking at things through policies and practices. What can we do for our clients? So that's how we design our own programs and processes for the clients.
Bryan Miller:
And then, what can we do for our industry? Because I think our industry is predominantly, in the creative field, is very predominantly white and Asian. What can we do to try to bring more people into the world, that this is a place that you can make a life and a living, which is something that BBMG is always done.
Bryan Miller:
I think it was born from an idea that if you align your passions, and you can make a life, and make a living, that is the work for us. So what we're trying to do is just bring more people into it, through those four lenses.
Raphael Bemporad:
My only build is I think that anti-racism is the work to do, but is not the destination. I think it's on the path. Because anti-racism, in its definition, is accounting for and seeking to correct systems and structures, norms that have created the world that we're in.
Raphael Bemporad:
But I think the invitation is actually more, in my heart and mind, what Rha Goddess invites us to, which is rehumanization. I think that's ultimately the destination, and yes, we have to more directly account for structural inequities, and dynamics of justice and inclusion. At the same time, recognize that energy of anti, just creates the opposite energy of anti.
Raphael Bemporad:
So what we have to understand is not just what anti means, but what for means, and what embodying means. So for us, yes, the path is very much to move toward being a multicultural organization, which welcomes diverse experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, benefits from the rich diversity of heritage and ideas and experiences and creativity, which also happens of course, in nature.
Raphael Bemporad:
And at the same time, start to identify and embody what we mean, when we find our humanity in and through and with each other. That's ultimately the work to do. And I keep Rha Goddess very close, in that rehumanization is ultimately the work.
Tim Cynova:
And I had the really great privilege of sitting in on a conversation that me and Raphael had with Rha Goddess, during one of our White Men For Racial Justice groups, and really appreciated that conversation that he had with them. And I'm curious if you can unpack maybe a little bit more about your personal journey, Raphael, and then Bryan, what got you to this point?
Tim Cynova:
Why are we three white guys on a podcast talking about race and racism? Why would you say yes to that? What has this journey been like for both of you?
Raphael Bemporad:
I'm not sure exactly how far back to start that journey, which could be generational, or it could be the summer of 2020. If I could try to tie those two horizons together.
Raphael Bemporad:
The son of a very progressive rabbi and a social worker, my dad was born in Italy. He was a refugee of the Holocaust, has spent his life, not only as an incredible preacher and teacher, but as a peace negotiator, working with different religions, to find common ground and heal one another, and heal what's failing the world, by identifying our common humanity. Then my mom was an extraordinary social worker and childcare expert, who rooted all of her work in relationship, which went all the way back to the first moments in the years of childhood, and having a consistent, caring, loving relationship.
Raphael Bemporad:
If you think about the journey of my dad and his parents, my grandparents, Enrico and [Vanna 00:11:52], escaping the Holocaust, my mom, building a future for children, that was rooted in deep bonding, and building a trusting relationship, you actually see the building blocks of the work, which is relationship and repair, and relationship and repair, and relationship and repair. This is ultimately the journey we're on.
Raphael Bemporad:
Then, as a professional, I started my work in politics. I was a speechwriter for a governor of Texas named Anne Richards, worked in community activism, and really co-founded BBMG, under the premise that brands could be a force for change, and still believe that of course, every day, I think what happened in the summer of 2020, and I would really invite your listeners to check out Rha Goddess’s “Open Letter to my Beloved White Male Colleagues” that she published in June of 2020.
Raphael Bemporad:
But it turned from, yes, I've absolutely been raised by extraordinary grandparents and parents. Yes, I've internalized values that I cherish, and yet, when experiencing the summer of 2020, experiencing and really taking in quietly and honestly, Rha’s open letter, one starts to appreciate that good intentions, well-meaning values, are just simply not enough, nor sufficient.
Raphael Bemporad:
What I had shared in a conversation with Rha, as I recognized that I thought it would be sufficient to be a conscientious objector, and say, "Well, what's happening in the world, those are not my values."
Raphael Bemporad:
And then, recognizing that it was no longer sufficient, and never has been, to be a conscientious objector. One has to join the work, and own the work, and create the change.
Raphael Bemporad:
I think what has been such a gift of White Men For Racial Justice, in our Tuesday nights, over the last year and a half and more, has been an opportunity to take more ownership and accountability for our own role, and the unearned privileges that we benefit from, the power that we hold, but also, the sort of dismantling, in our own minds and hearts, and dismantling in our organizations, and dismantling in our society, the structures of dehumanization and supremacy, and ultimately, separation, that keeps us out of relationship, out of integrity, and move toward finding a path toward more right relationship, as Jessica Norwood would say, that is rooted in interdependence, rooted in self-care, mutuality and love, and a fierce accountability, really, for the role that we play, in the society that we're in.
Bryan Miller:
I think, for me as, just looking at the last year and a half as it lines up, I think, really, it's just for me, I think the world held a mirror up to us. And that's something at BBMG we love to do.
Bryan Miller:
How we talk about our own work is, we kind of look back and say, "How did we really do?" And I think, what happened a year and a half ago, with George Floyd, really was the world saying, "Enough is enough. Here is the mirror, and let's take action. Let's do it together."
Bryan Miller:
For me, just looking at those last 18 months, the work has been with me for quite awhile. I had married a Jamaican woman, so I now experienced a little bit of a different world, being with a woman who is black, going through society, and seeing how it's treated, and how people show up differently for her, than me.
Bryan Miller:
So the work has been, then, with me, but I think the last 18 months has really been the eye-opening moment to say, "There is a better world. This is not even something that we could even try to agree with. It's something that we actually have to overcome together."
Bryan Miller:
For me, that's really what brought me to the work, is not only my wife and her family, the world is asking us, and telling us, that we need to create a new world together.
Tim Cynova:
How has this work looked like in BBMG, as you wrestle personally and professionally, with the company that you've built?
Raphael Bemporad:
Well, I think, as Bryan shared, we're really trying to embed justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, inside of what we do for each other in our own personal journeys, what we do inside the business, what we do with our clients, and what we do in our industry. And I would say, our commitments, from the very beginning, was recognizing, that to hold this with integrity, it had to be transparent.
Raphael Bemporad:
We had to hold a mirror to ourselves and each other, and we just had to welcome, and walk the path, step by step. One of the things that's been most illuminating and painful, we are a small and mighty team, and everything that we're doing has been quite transparent.
Raphael Bemporad:
So we do, listening to the whole team, we codify it in a survey, that helps us really set a found for learning, about how are we doing across a whole set of policies and practices. But inside of that, when we asked our team to give voice to their experience, many folks recognized and appreciated well-meaning intention, but they also just surfaced some hard truths and some brutal facts, disproportionate number of white people leading our organization, the entire leadership is white.
Raphael Bemporad:
The way of when you're joining a team like ours, which is, we're about 58% white, 42% nonwhite, that we're asking folks to come into a culture and an experience isn't necessarily their own. We're well-meaning people, and we're kind people in our company, we have a very loving and caring and supportive culture.
Raphael Bemporad:
And yet, just listening and seeing that people's experiences were tough, and hard, and that they were looking at the makeup of our team, and in particular, our leadership, and not seeing themselves reflected, that's both, structurally, a challenge for a small company, and culturally devastating to know that one doesn't feel welcomed, even despite one's intention, to create a welcoming environment. It's just the reality and the truth.
Raphael Bemporad:
One of the ways that we've tried to hold this with integrity is making everything transparent from what we're learning, to our policies. And then, as you've helped us, Tim, in the work that you've been doing, that the practices that we can hold, from how we hire, casting a deeper network to seek team members, to take names off of resumes, amazed to have more than one person involved in each step, all of those things that just help us move toward the organization we want to be, the industry we want to help steward in the world we want to create.
Raphael Bemporad:
I would say, of all the lessons, it's been, as Bryan said, taking an honest look in the mirror and knowing that there's beauty there, but there's also brutal truths. And just to honor that, and to walk in and through those realities, and then, just make intentional decisions to keep pausing at every decision point, keep reflecting on checking yourself to pattern, checking yourself to previous norm, and asking in this moment of choice, "Do I have alternative choices, broader opportunities, broader ways," is what we've done in the past, serving us in the future that we want.
Raphael Bemporad:
Literally, that intentional moment of pause, and then stepping into asking, "What does it mean to be at choice in this moment, and in this moment, and in this moment," has been really helpful, and it's a profoundly humbling reality. We have so much to do, and so far to go. And yet, I think we've tried to hold the conversation and the work with integrity along the way.
Bryan Miller:
To build on that, I think Raphael had pointed out one of the biggest things that we're working on, given our current visibility, in terms of our diversity metrics is the inclusion. So we had done a internship program last year, where we had one intern across each of the four disciplines in the business. That is our account, our design, our marketing, as well as strategy team.
Bryan Miller:
And it was a really fun project, where we did a pro bono project for Black Women's Player Collective, which is something that's passionate of Raphael and myself. We love soccer, well, we have to say "football," Raphael, and some of our team members, that we had come to create a brand for black women, to help educate young women, and to give them the opportunity to become professional players.
Bryan Miller:
But I think, one of the things through that program is, we found a lot of our blind spots, not just through the surveys, but the experiences that have been lived, just from the first moment that somebody comes to BBMG's door. As Raphael said, we are a very kind and caring culture, we have well intentions, but what are the unintended consequences?
Bryan Miller:
Just opening ourselves up to that vulnerability has given us a lot of work to do, to think about, what does inclusion look like? Of course, there's a lot of things that we can do on the policies and practices, but really thinking about, what is the experience?
Bryan Miller:
We're taking the employee experience and breaking it down into parts, as Raphael said, and asking, "What are different choices that we can make? What are different ways that we could be doing this, to make it be more inclusive, not just more diverse, but more inclusive?"
Bryan Miller:
Because I think also inside the organization, I think that's a lot of the work, and that's how we communicate, that's how we lead. One of the things that I appreciate about our team is 100% transparency, and we get to share everything together.
Bryan Miller:
One of the policies that we did create is, we will not make big decisions without consulting the full team. So every big decision in the business, whether that's from hiring, or creating a strategic plan, all of that goes out to the team. We share it, get feedback and inputs, which is not something that we've done in the past.
Bryan Miller:
I think it's just another way for us to try to make a business that's more inclusive, but also, people feeling ownership of their futures. And I think that's really exciting about the model of BBMG that we've been practicing, to try to make things a little bit more inclusive.
Tim Cynova:
That's really cool. I also find, while there are hard truths and personal work we need to do, this is some of the most exciting stuff that I personally I've ever been a part of.
Tim Cynova:
It's fun to be like, "How do we actually want to create this company, in a way that's not the way the book from 1985 says you should run a company," and making this all up. Do you, do you find that same fun and exhilaration in the work that you're doing?
Raphael Bemporad:
1,000%. And I would say the building blocks of the joy that you're naming, and almost the childlike wonder, and curiosity and excitement, comes from trying to embody and manifest to being a B-Corporation, and really deeply embodying all the dimensions of impact, that being a B-Corp invites, about what we learned, back in the day, from [inaudible 00:22:19], now common future, about relationship, and embedding and rooting all that we do in the company and relationship.
Raphael Bemporad:
And then, our journey together, which is building on both of those, in White Men For Racial Justice and our equity advisors, has just been a path of such great gratitude, as we've learned and grown together, with and through, that our equity advisors are helping to guide and hold us to account. And I agree with you, it's like, the blessing of being alive in challenging times, is that it opens up, and can welcome us to our full humanity.
Raphael Bemporad:
And I think that has been, as Bryan said, we exist to not just make a living, but to make a life. And we're alive at a time where we're called to deepen and broaden what we mean by work, how we see ourselves in relationship with one another. And then, ultimately, look quite directly at the systems and structures we've created and inherited, and then, asking if they serve us, which obviously they don't.
Raphael Bemporad:
We're at such a great moment, historically, of transition and transformation. So in community together, exploring this, and co-creating where we might go, it's truly just a glory. It's a glory to behold.
Bryan Miller:
As I've been doing this work, I've been co-leading it with Raphael, and there's other team members that have, the whole team has been engaged. Particularly, there's been a strategist that's helped us, Jen Louie on our team, who's really been the one holding the mirror to Raphael and I, in every single conversation.
Bryan Miller:
Her and I would always chat. And I always told her, if I didn't understand money, this would have been my work, this would have been my career, this would have been my path. Because I think it opens up such different conversations, when you're just not talking about business, but you're talking about the relationships, you're talking about people, their lives, their lived experiences.
Bryan Miller:
And I think the idea of curiosity and the need, the one, the desire really makes this work something that's been super exciting for me. The moment is here, and I'm glad to be a part of the moment.
Tim Cynova:
Let's talk about the transparency that you both have mentioned, because I think this is one of the things that we strive for, sharing information, sharing power, sharing, decision making. At the same time, it introduces other things that aren't necessarily unintended consequences, but the work shows up in different ways.
Tim Cynova:
We have different conversations. People often say, "Yeah, I would love shared decision making, but that takes so much longer, it's so much easier for me, just to make a decision, and then go with it," rather than saying, "All right, well, do you have to backtrack on that decision? Who's involved, who's impacted by that decision?"
Tim Cynova:
So I'm curious if you can unpack this a 100% transparency a bit more, where have you seen it? You're like, "Wow, that would have never happened, had we not done this?"
Tim Cynova:
And where have you seen it? "Oh, God, this transparency thing, maybe we need to think about again, because that sort of spun out in a different way that was unintended, or caused us to wrestle with it more in different ways. Had we just done this the 'normal' way? We've been past this."
Raphael Bemporad:
If I could just speak philosophically to it, and then, maybe, Bryan could speak pragmatically to it. But I think we're at a moment, and I did have recently an absolutely glorious conversation with Lorna Davis, who is a global B-Corp ambassador, former CEO of Danone in the USA.
Raphael Bemporad:
She just reinforced something that has increasingly become a truth for me, which is that none of us have the answers. None of us know what we're doing. None of us have solved or lived through what ultimately is in an emergent space.
Raphael Bemporad:
The transparency isn't so much, "Oh, I had all the answers, and I'm on high, I'm going to gift you my knowledge." It's not that at all. It's quite the opposite. It's just a recognition that I have no idea where we're going. I have idea how to do this elegantly.
Raphael Bemporad:
So, hey, can we think this through together, might we stumble, and create, and navigate this together? Because we just recognize that this is something that we all care about, it's something that we all own, and hope to embody. To me, the transparency, isn't some, "Woo-hoo, we're great, enlightened leaders, ceding power." It's much more, just a deep recognition that we don't know what we're doing, and that we welcome everybody's not knowing.
Raphael Bemporad:
Frankly, not knowing at a time of great change is a huge and important gift, because knowing has not done what we thought it would. We add a lot of false consciousness in the past about what knowing meant, so I just think, living in the emergent, welcoming it, acknowledging, knowing, and not knowing, which is what Lorna was sharing with us, that is more the posture here.
Raphael Bemporad:
As a consequence of that, we'll share all of our survey, including every verbatim that had brutal, brutal comments in it. But that's, it's almost thanking the difficulty, thanking the hard truth as a gift, rather than putting up defenses and walls and saying, "Oh, how am I going to navigate that, once our crisis comes?"
Raphael Bemporad:
It's not that impulse. It's saying, "Whoa, thank you for that brutal truth, because now, I get to see it, and dance with it." That's the posture. And we are trying to, it's shared, and it's now a policy in New York, publishing pay bands on every job, and all those things.
Raphael Bemporad:
But that's kind of, those become more obvious, when you allow yourself more of the posture of just not knowing, and welcoming the fact that we're all guiding our way through an emergent space.
Bryan Miller:
Yeah, and I would just disprove the notion that things take longer. In fact, I think it takes the same amount of time. It's just a matter of what types of conversations and questions you're asking, right?
Bryan Miller:
This is one of the first years we've done our strategic planning. So typically, from September until December, we start to think about what does the future look for us, in one year, three years, five years?
Bryan Miller:
And I would say the same process took the same amount of time. We had such better ideas come to the table, because we had shared, as Raphael said, "We don't have all the answers, but we think these are the assets that we can build upon. These are the opportunity spaces for us to go build into. What do you guys think?"
Bryan Miller:
And I think the result of our strategic plan is much better, because we had the whole team involved in it, and as Raphael said, "It's not about, every decision doesn't need to go to the team. For me, the inclusion part also needs to be empowered. So not every daily decision needs to be, in my mind, brought to a committee, ticking down time."
Bryan Miller:
It's a matter of giving somebody the tools, and the learning, to be able to make that decision, through the lens of all the work that we're trying to do in our building a multicultural organization, but then, also taking some of those decisions, and asking for the inputs.
Bryan Miller:
Frankly, back to the strategic plan, it took us the same amount of time. I would honestly disprove the idea that things take longer. I think it's giving the people in decision making power, the right tools, to be able to ask the right questions, and to be able to make the decisions in a timely manner.
Tim Cynova:
I'm curious, from an HR perspective, when you talk about 100% transparency.
Raphael Bemporad:
I don't know that we have 100% transparency, but we have pretty close to that. And I would say we've had, broadly, open books for the team, every quarter. We open the books to share, how are we doing at the end of the year? We have a series of metrics, both financial and cultural, and all around quality of work and health of the team.
Raphael Bemporad:
And at the end of the year, we share from whatever we're ending up with, where it goes and why, and how we're enumerating and rewarding the team, how we're reinvesting in the future. And that's broadly available, because we're all navigating it, and we're all leading that together.
Raphael Bemporad:
We do publish pay bands, both for every job posting, but also, just within one's own growth path, from being a junior team member through a senior team member. All those pay bands are transparently, and available.
Raphael Bemporad:
The thing, though, that I'm most excited about with transparency is, and I would welcome Bryan building on the HR policies, but part of it is the cultural way. And we have a great ally and beloved BBMG team member over the years, named Joseph Ingram. When he served as our managing director, we brought in something called growth feedback.
Raphael Bemporad:
The idea is that at the end of the year, when you do your performance reviews, that should not be a surprise. Actually, you should have a very clear sense of how things are going, because throughout the year, you've checked in with different team members.
Raphael Bemporad:
The way that this works is so lovely. Throughout the year team, members have growth feedback sessions. One, I appreciate the premise of growth feedback, because it's in real time, and in planned sessions together, we're sharing three beats.
Raphael Bemporad:
One is identifying an experience. "Tim, do you remember when we had that podcast conversation? It was thrilling."
Raphael Bemporad:
The second beat is, after naming the experience, the impact. "Well, that gave me, it impacted me in this way." In this case, it gave me great appreciation and inspiration for the work we do together, and in the future, it has an invitation. Those things can be strengths, but also opportunities for growth.
Raphael Bemporad:
Now, that's part of transparency, too, because we're opening up honest and brave conversations in service to each team member's, and each other's growth development, and full creativity and humanity. So what happens at the end of the year is, you're able to look at the broad experience of your year, and hopefully, you feel yourself growing, because you've had a team of mirror holders, loving mirror holders, helping to see yourself from different perspectives, and grow. That's also transparency to me, which is having a brave culture to share and celebrate how we're doing throughout the year, over time.
Raphael Bemporad:
So I think those are some of the building blocks from sharing our numbers, talking about the different pay bands, and then, ultimately, having honest and open conversations about how we're doing together throughout the year. I think the biggest conundrum for an organization like BBMG is our leadership team, because our leadership team is an amazing group of folks who are representing the different disciplines.
Raphael Bemporad:
So our leadership team has our head of creative, head of accounts, head of strategy, our leader of people, Bryan, on our financial officer side, and myself. We're all white. And the folks on that group have been with BBMG for 11 years, for 10 years, and they just have built a life, and made a living through the organization.
Raphael Bemporad:
The way that we can help to address this is having to grow the business sufficiently enough, that we can hire at the top as well. What that means for sales, what that means for our growth, year over year, to be able to do that.
Raphael Bemporad:
That's what I'm most grappling with, is how do we diversify, and welcome a more broadly diverse set of leadership in the short term, while I think that's something we can absolutely do in the long term, as we grow our team, and the financial constraints, and the structural constraints that I don't know yet, how to navigate? That's on our mind.
Bryan Miller:
To build, both from a cultural perspective, and then, also, how I'm thinking about it from an HR perspective, we see ourselves as a culture of growth. Inside of it, we have five values that kind of drive us every day, in the way to that we operate as a team, the kind of filters we go through, and thinking about how we manage the business.
Bryan Miller:
Through that is the growth and transparency for each other, because we care about each other, we want to grow together, so we're going to give each other feedback, but we're also going to call hard trues when hard truths, need to be, as said, in service of the growth of the organization and the individual. Being a growth mindset is something that we're always been aspiring to do, and I think we've had great success to do it, but this is just the next journey on our growth.
Bryan Miller:
So the transparency needs to come through, the culture that we already have, to be able to share the experiences and metrics, and things that we just haven't even uncovered in the past. Then, I think, on the HR side, there's, to me, [inaudible 00:34:25] lags, the culture, of what the culture needs, so it's about being compliant.
Bryan Miller:
So I think what we do is, that's our foundation. What can we do on top of that, that's better? So that's all the things that we are doing around our policies and practices.
Bryan Miller:
Thinking about, just hiring as an example, we've uncovered the hard truths of what brought us to BBMG, to have a white leadership team, as well as, I think we said 58% still, our white organization, how can we undo it? So thinking about our hiring, one thing that we found is we always go to our own network.
Bryan Miller:
We hear about somebody who's amazing, who's probably also white. We may have, in the past, hired without posting a job publicly. That will never happen again. That's one of our new policies.
Bryan Miller:
Also, every posting has a budget to specifically invest and recruit from diverse communities. Also, as Raphael said, have a transparent salary band. On the note of salary band, everyone knows what each band is, for each role. So a junior has this band, a senior has this band, a leadership team and executive team has this band.
Bryan Miller:
We also know that some of our blind spots are around the recruitment process. So we want to make sure that at every stage, we have at least 50% of a diverse pool, so that way, we're making sure of that. It's going to take time, and in the creative industry, everything has to happen today, or yesterday.
Bryan Miller:
One of the things is just being very mindful about the pause, and continuing to just kind of build guidelines and frameworks around, these were the blind spots for us in the past. This is going to, what's helped us get us closer to the multicultural organization, so we're just designing policies and practices around it.
Bryan Miller:
And Tim, you had shared previously, your recruitment process that you had run, and I'm really excited to see that come at it. But just helping us really take a deeper look at every single interaction that people have internally, as well as externally with us, to be able to create something that's a little bit closer to our aspiration of rehumanizing, and becoming multicultural.
Tim Cynova:
Talking about fun, that process of helping lead that search at Opera Philadelphia, for that new role, I would say, top five most fulfilling things in my entire career. It was the most fun I've had in that for a long time.
Tim Cynova:
It was just a group of people who are coming together to, "Yeah, let's figure out how we can do this, while centering equity and inclusion." It just was a beautiful process, and there's a lot of uncertainty and we talked a lot about, "That's just conventional wisdom. Why would we change that?" So yeah, excited to share that with everyone, and see where it goes next.
Tim Cynova:
One of the questions that we often get, when we're talking with the organizations about the work is, for people who aren't in positions of formal leadership and power, saying, "What if my CEO, or what if the leadership team, or what if the Board of Directors, doesn't believe that this is important work that our organization should be doing, anti-racism equity, justice, however, the frame might be?"
Tim Cynova:
Often, it's like, "We're an innovative tech company, and we want be an apolitical space. We don't want to bring politics in the workplace, or talk about racism or Black Lives Matter." When you hear things like this from people, how would you typically advise them to approach this, to think about this, or what they should do?
Raphael Bemporad:
It's a profound question. I think it is an opportunity to reflect on why we show up in whatever role we're in whatever context. At BBMG. We have a series of aspirations rooted in why we created the business in the first place. And they all came from my dad, the rabbi.
Raphael Bemporad:
It was really lovely. It's literally the napkin before our business was born, and we were writing down like what my dad was encouraging us to think about in creating a company. Like my dad knew anything about business as our rabbi, but boy, he knows a lot about humanity.
Raphael Bemporad:
And he said, number one, whatever is most deeply creative in you, and each of the team members, that that would be nourished every day. Big seed creativity, not just the design team, but the creativity that connects you to the creativity of the universe.
Raphael Bemporad:
Two, that you work with people who share your values, that ultimately, what's important to you is important to them. Third, that you're learning and growing every day, and that who you are today, literally, professionally, personally, you find yourself expanding over time, through challenge and mastery in the flow state, like you're really evolving.
Raphael Bemporad:
Fourth, that you can use our precious time on Earth to make an impact in the lives of others, and in the community. And finally, that you can make a good living. And I think that if those are why we might want to create a company, or show up at a company, I think the reality is, there's no way to be in integrity with those things, unless we're facing the context of white supremacy, and structural inequities and racism. I believe race, in particular is just one of the many ways that we, dehumanize or "other" folks who are different than we are. Race is a very devastating strategy, but not the only one.
Raphael Bemporad:
We do it in a lot of ways. And that, ultimately, my professor, Jon Rodden, said to have a conversation every day with the 80-year-old version of yourself, just imagine, again, in every moment, you're talking to the 80-year-old version of yourself.
Raphael Bemporad:
And you want that 80-year-old to look back on your life in this moment, and to be proud of the choice that you made, of what you embodied, of how you cared or loved. Ultimately, to the person who's saying, "The CEO's not on board," just ask, "Am I creative? Am I working with people who share my values? Am I learning, am I growing? Am I making a difference? And am I'm making a living?"
Raphael Bemporad:
Ultimately, talking to my 80-year-old version of myself, "Am I proud of what I'm doing and choosing?" And the rest will take care of itself.
Raphael Bemporad:
And what I ultimately believe is, the only path to integrity in that is facing the way we dehumanize each other, we other one another, because we're fearful. We feel a false sense of either superiority or power, or we're just scared.
Raphael Bemporad:
To me, that's the conversation to have. And if, as a consequence, you're working in a organization with a CEO who doesn't share your values, or minimizes everything to transactional relationships, well, you might not want to be part of that, anyway, despite this stock options. I'm not really sure what that buys you, at the end of the day, if you have that conversation with your 80-year-old self.
Raphael Bemporad:
I keep pivoting to philosophy, but I really believe it's a helpful way to center, when we think about these issues. And I think what we've all learned in the conversation that we're having today, and over the work of White Men For Racial Justice these last 18 months, and in life, is that the only path to the promised land is in right relationship, as Jessica Norwood has said.
Raphael Bemporad:
And it is about interdependence, and caring and healing, and repair and love, and that's the work. At least, that's the work we want to be part of.
Bryan Miller:
I'll double down a little bit on the philosophical, because I think it touches on one thing that I've kind of helped get me through this work is, I've turned back to all the great people in the past that have dealt with many struggles, one of them, in particular, I've always been reading a lot recently about, Marcus Aurelius.
Bryan Miller:
So stoicism is something that has really both touched on. What Raphael said is, in every moment, you have to ask yourself is this. It's going to be a struggle, but ultimately, you're being called to be greater.
Bryan Miller:
I would also ask somebody, "Is this something that you want to be able to teach your kids about? Is it something that you can have a right relationship with yourself, before you can have with the world?" Because you have to ask inside yourself to really understand what is it, and who are you?
Bryan Miller:
So that's something that's really helped me in the past, is just think about stoicism, and your own creativity. But then, also, I love things around behavior economics. So I would also ask somebody, something around loss aversion, if you're in a corporation, or if you are leading a company that isn't doing it, what are you giving up?
Bryan Miller:
There's a lot of risk there, there's a lot of loss aversion, because talent will follow where they want to go, and we've seen the culture flip. And I think people are going to ultimately weed out of buying the brands, working at the companies, that don't have this a part of their work. And it's something that we've seen in our own recruiting processes.
Bryan Miller:
I've asked myself these questions at every step of the way, and BBMG showed up in this way. At this type of conversation, for example, it would have been great to speak with other colleagues who are also diverse.
Bryan Miller:
Okay, that's a good learning, but I think that we have to look inside ourselves, and we also have to look at, what is culture doing for us? And then, ultimately, from a business perspective, what are you willing to lose, by not being brave, and not showing up, and being a human, and human for other people?
Raphael Bemporad:
Per that point, Tim, just the joy that you shared about the work, among the most profound experiences of your life. Why would anyone want to miss that be beautiful opportunity, and the noble struggle. And the beautiful struggle. And the journey that you've traveled?
Raphael Bemporad:
Yeah, okay. You can cash that check, or you can work in your tech company that's not thinking about this, or trying to embody it, but you're missing out on what Tim's about to tell you about, and the joy that Tim felt, and that we are getting to experience by facing the work.
Raphael Bemporad:
To me, it's maybe a self-fulfilling loop here, but I don't think it's a big choice. I think there's a clear side on the wager here, of where our joy and our creativity, and our sense of community and our creativity, will live.
Bryan Miller:
And I would just say, take three or four hours and read meditations. You will have a different perspective on the world, as well as people who've been in different struggles, really, I think is something that's personally helped me.
Tim Cynova:
This has been such a fun conversation, we're leaving so much unexplored, we're at time here. Is there anything else you want to add as we land the plane here, and wrap up our conversation today?
Raphael Bemporad:
The first is, we were together, Tim, maybe a week ago, and Dr. Zoe Spencer was sharing her birthday evening with the community of White Men For Racial Justice. And in that conversation, which was just remarkable and joyful, she said that, in speaking directly to our feelings of insecurity, and not just humility, but inadequacy, in embodying and trying to do this work as white men, she said, "Consciousness changes energy, energy changes space. And if your heart is in it, and you seek the truth, it will always be okay."
Raphael Bemporad:
Amen to that, and thank you, Dr. Zoe. And then, I was just thinking about this last night. I called my dad, because he gave a sermon, I don't know, 15 years ago. And I just remember the title. And the title was called, On Having Eyes to See.
Raphael Bemporad:
I called him last night, I'm like, "Dad, remember that?" He was, "Oh, of course." I was like, "Well, what's that about?" He said, "Well, that's Deuteronomy 29," and I'm not religiously a scholarly person.
Raphael Bemporad:
But so, through my dad, I'm sharing, it's Deuteronomy 29. Moses has brought the people through 40 years in the desert. They're on the precipice of reaching the Promised Land.
Raphael Bemporad:
And Moses said to the people, "Through this experience, you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to understand who you are as a people, and what you can create." The work of White Men For Racial Justice, above all, has been a great path of love and truth seeing, a growth journey, for sure.
Raphael Bemporad:
What I'm so grateful for, apart from the personal relationships, and our equity advisors' wisdom and generosity, has been having eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to understand reality, that we had chosen very intentionally not to see in the past. So that's where I would end, which is, the gift of eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to begin to understand.
Bryan Miller:
I don't know if I have anything as eloquent as that. But I would say, part of the White Men For Racial Justice that we've been a part of together, I would say, is just opening yourself up, vulnerably is, my only parting advice is, having a community to be able to experience this and go through it together, as somebody who's both curious, who's growth minded, who's very conscious of their unconscious biases, having somebody to go through that journey together has been remarkable.
Bryan Miller:
So if there's any that is looking for a community, White Men For Racial Justice is one of those. But also, just being in community with others, going through it, is probably my own partying advice.
Tim Cynova:
Well, Bryan and Raphael, thank you so much for your community, your support, your vulnerability, your insights, your expertise, for sharing a joyful hour together in this conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Bryan Miller:
Thank you, Tim.
Raphael Bemporad:
Yeah, thank you, Tim. Really wonderful to be together, and thanks for all that you're doing to help steward us, as well.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes, so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun, too. Give it a thumbs up, or a five stars, or a phone or friend, whatever your podcasting platform or choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:
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If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.
Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep6: Conversation with Sydney Skybetter (EP.59)
In episode six of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Sydney Skybetter choreographer and founder of the Center for Research on Choreographic Interfaces that convenes experts in dance, performance, computer science, kinesiology, anthropology, social justice, and design to explore the relationship between bodies, movement, and emerging technologies.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
April 4, 2022
In episode six of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Sydney Skybetter choreographer and founder of the Center for Research on Choreographic Interfaces that convenes experts in dance, performance, computer science, kinesiology, anthropology, social justice, and design to explore the relationship between bodies, movement, and emerging technologies.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films. Read “Reflections From a Token Black Friend,” mentioned in this episode.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
SYDNEY SKYBETTER is a choreographer. Hailed by the Financial Times as “One of the world’s foremost thinkers on the intersection of dance and emerging technologies,” Sydney’s choreography has been performed at such venues as The Kennedy Center, Jacob’s Pillow and The Joyce Theater. A sought-after speaker, he has lectured at SXSW, Yale, Mozilla, and Stanford, and consulted for The National Ballet of Canada, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Hasbro, New York University and The University of Southern California, among others. He is a Public Humanities Fellow, Senior Lecturer and the Associate Chair of Theatre Arts & Performance Studies at Brown University, and an affiliate of metaLAB at Harvard University and Dark Laboratory at Cornell University. He is a regular contributor to WIRED and Dance Magazine, has served as a Grant Panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts, is a founding member of the Guild of Future Architects, and is the Founder of the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Sydney Skybetter:
The privilege that I occupy is in relation to hegemonic violence everywhere. So, the pervasiveness and subtlety of hegemony, it's like The Matrix. It's everywhere. Maybe to borrow a little bit from the Wachowski siblings and a little bit from Kimberley Crenshaw, we're all in a prison that for many of us, we can neither feel, nor taste, nor touch. It's everywhere.
Sydney Skybetter:
But this means that the work of resistance has to be equally ubiquitous. It means that from making decisions about how I structure my payroll, to how I parent my children, I need to always, always be looking for ways to learn and to do the work. It's all the work. And if that sounds exhausting to the other white folks listening in today, imagine what it's like for the folks for whom prison isn't a metaphor, the folks for whom the very notion of America was constructed to subjugate.
Sydney Skybetter:
I choose to engage in this work because I was afforded the choice, and also because choosing not to make a choice is a choice too.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Tim Cynova:
We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10 part mini-series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism.
Tim Cynova:
While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I introduced the series and frame these conversations.
Tim Cynova:
All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co.
Tim Cynova:
In this series, we're talking with the variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define their work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work, others say they approach it more through a justice lens, others, inclusion and belonging, still others, equity and impact.
Tim Cynova:
Through were these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging, and since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with.
Tim Cynova:
On today's conversation, I'm joined by Sydney Skybetter, someone who wears a multitude of hats, which you could read more about in his bio that's included in the episode description.
Tim Cynova:
One thing conspicuously absent I noticed is his stint as a famed co-host of the popular-ish online TV show, Sky Nova. Perhaps if time allows, we'll dig into that. So let's get going.
Tim Cynova:
Sydney, welcome to the podcast.
Sydney Skybetter:
Thank you, Tim. It's a pleasure to be here. Though quick note to Bennet, I'm not sure we were ever popular.
Tim Cynova:
I said popular-ish.
Sydney Skybetter:
Oh, I see. I was going to say your mom may differ on that opinion, but anyway, a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Tim Cynova:
Sydney, you wear a multitude of hats. And even though I've known you for more than a decade, I lose track of which ones you're wearing when from time to time. So how do you typically introduce yourself these days and the work that you do?
Sydney Skybetter:
After being in industry for 20 years, I have finally consolidated my hats to just one. I introduce myself now as a choreographer. I, as you mentioned, have had a number of different professional ventures or interfaces. I've done everything from web design to...
Sydney Skybetter:
Actually speaking of hats, I was a Ukrainian hat salesman for a while there. That was in the early 2000s. That was the first time I got fired. I digress.
Sydney Skybetter:
I introduce myself as a choreographer because I'm interested in bodies and how bodies move through space and time, and most recently, how bodies move in relation to computational systems ranging from robotics to virtual reality and artificial intelligences.
Sydney Skybetter:
I'm a professor here at Brown University and the founder of a center for research on choreographic interfaces.
Tim Cynova:
That's cool. What is the center going to be focused on?
Sydney Skybetter:
So for the last seven years, we have produced a convening here at Brown called The Conference for Research On Choreographic Interfaces or CRCI named for the home necromancer witch whose story reminds us, among other things, of the dangers of technologies that are indistinguishable from magic.
Sydney Skybetter:
Functionally, this convening has been all about the creative possibilities and perils of when bodies meet emerging computational systems ranging from the quotidian. From our watches and phones and computers to the more advanced and militaristic, ranging from military robots and drones to surveillance apparatus at the TSA. Wherever bodies run into these computational systems, there are possibilities and no small amount of risks and this conference and now center exists to study these and intervene where possible.
Tim Cynova:
Fascinating, Sydney.
Tim Cynova:
We've talked with a lot of people in this podcast mini series who define the work that they do differently. Anti-racism, anti-oppression, diversity, equity, inclusion, justice. I'm really curious too, with the work that you're doing with center, how do you define and categorize the lenses that you view your work and especially through some pretty problematic stuff that's developing around AI and robotics and how those systems are especially oppressive of non-white guys.
Sydney Skybetter:
Yeah. That's a deep stack. I think the term I center on most frequently of the litany you just mentioned is justice and consideration of designing towards justice.
Sydney Skybetter:
I'm involved in a lot of conversations that pertain to the design and implementation of a lot of these emerging technologies. We work with a lot of technologists, engineers and designers who are in the room making and building, and testing these things. And because of this, I'm particularly interested in and site frequently the work of Sasha Castanza-Chock, Design Justice. This is a phenomenal book and critique that distinguishes, among other things, between designing for good and designing towards justice.
Sydney Skybetter:
If you imagine IDO or OXO, or any number of these design agencies that pretend or pretend to design towards universality, universal design is a mantra that is pretty popular and has been for the last decade or so. But Castanza-Chock points out that the idea of universal design is a mythology. It's impossible. Even if you have like a slightly wider carrot peeler or whatever, you are still designing towards certain kinds of affordances and creating dis-affordances for others.
Sydney Skybetter:
And so this question of universality is first completely dismissed. We are always, when designing or engineering something, creating affordances for some and dis-affordances for others.
Sydney Skybetter:
This is a way of dismantling the question of designing towards good or working towards good, but introduces a more complex question of, what does it mean to design towards justice? What does it mean to create design processes that at are oriented towards an intersectional approach, that acknowledge hegemonic violence, that acknowledge ecological justice and climate change, that acknowledge the asymmetries in the corporal risks pertaining to the emergence of these technologies? This allows us to reconceive of design culture in a really radical way that this is still a practice, by the way. We're still working on figuring out how to do this, but there are growing communities of practice that are committed to this work, and the CRCI Center is in good company here.
Sydney Skybetter:
The other further complication, when thinking about designing towards justice or emerging technologies that pertain towards questions of justice, we're working within some really fraught institutional frameworks here.
Sydney Skybetter:
So for example, I'm a professor at Brown. It's a 300 year old institution on stolen land built by enslaved labor. I am extending a legacy of displacement and hegemonic violence that while I aim politically in my research and create a practice to counter, I'm nonetheless implicated in it also. This gets even more complicated when we start talking about, for example, some of the robotic research that we're doing here at Brown with military robotics.
Sydney Skybetter:
In order to understand these robotic systems, we have to first acquire them and we have to use military money to buy military robots. So we're participating in this economy that nonetheless seat to dismantle. And so this implication, these implications within a matrix of structures that I disagree with strongly, this is challenging ethically. This is a really pernicious, ethical territory.
Sydney Skybetter:
And a text that really helps in the parsing of these implications is a phenomenal book by critic and scholar, Anna Watkins-Fisher. She wrote a book called The Play In The System, The Art of Parasitical Resistance and this text, it's a adversarial book, but among other things, it argues using artist case studies that we can't step outside of capitalism. We can't just turn off our implications in military technologies. We all use the internet, we all use have our phones. We can't just stop using these things. So the question maybe becomes, how do we deploy our implication in these systems specifically so as to do the work of dismantling?
Sydney Skybetter:
And now this is an intermittently utopian vector. It's sloppy, it's messy, it's complicated, it contradicts itself. But Fisher's argument is that we don't have a choice, but to do this.
Sydney Skybetter:
And I find that really compelling because also in order to understand how military robotics, for example, perpetuates certain kinds of racist violence, we need to actually get the robots. We need to understand the robots and to do that, we need to buy the robots and to buy the robots, we need the grants and to get the grants, we need to have relationships with the military.
Sydney Skybetter:
I don't like any of those things, yet that is how the research happens.
Tim Cynova:
How do you reconcile that as Sydney Skybetter, holding all of those things at the same time?
Sydney Skybetter:
Intermittently. It's a challenge. I don't know that I have a perfect balance or completely equitable understanding of these factors. And part of the difficulty here is that the effects of these implications, the effects of these entanglements is intentionally opaque. It is black boxed.
Sydney Skybetter:
So for example, the robots that we use in the lab, they feed data back to the folks who designed the robots to begin with. It is impossible for me to know how that data is used. Chances are good that that data is used to improve the robotic operation systems overall. And chances are good that by improving the operational qualities of these robots, that the robots become better at things like police surveillance and war fighting.
Sydney Skybetter:
So I can't quantify that. I can't even know that is certain to be the case, but this is also part of the research. This is part of the practice, to discern what data is leaking from these robots and how it's potentially being used.
Sydney Skybetter:
One of the ways that I rationalize this, though, I have to admit this isn't terribly satisfying, is that we engage in the research so as to understand the implications of the research. And I don't know that we have a choice to step away from the nature of the research. Because for example, if we stop working with the robots, it's not as though the robots stop existing. It's not as though the robots are going to, because we aren't paying attention to them, stop being deployed in communities of color or abroad in war fighting environments.
Sydney Skybetter:
My hope is to utilize what privilege I have, what institutional capital and access I can manage, so as to get as close to the system as possible, so as to learn how to create friction, so as to teach my students about how these things work in the world not just in the abstract in a distance critical or journalistic fashion, but at the level of the code, to teach how specifically not only are these robots implicated within larger structures of hegemonic violence, but indeed to teach about our implication in the classroom relative to the robots, relative to the hegemonic violence.
Sydney Skybetter:
For example, we're teaching choreo-robotics in the spring. This is a course that is all about the overlap of choreographic theory and robotic motion planning because Brown University.
Sydney Skybetter:
Anyway, built into the course is critique of us in the course. We are attempting to keep not only our eyes open as professors and instructors, but we are attempting to share this critical uncertainty with our students.
Sydney Skybetter:
Again, it's messy, it's sloppy, it's uncertain, it's a mess, and yet this is where the work is, I think, especially when it pertains to these emerging technologies.
Tim Cynova:
Sydney, that's really fascinating. And you weren't always buying military robots. Can you talk about what brought you to this work of justice and did you come directly to justice or what was that journey like, and why is this important to you?
Sydney Skybetter:
I have long been interested in the relationship of bodies and emerging technologies of all sorts, and going back against historically, I'm a conservatory trained dancer. I have conservatory training in creating dances for stages using stage lighting and costuming, selling tickets through the technical apparatus of what's called a theater and using technologies of marketing and communications. All of the ways that we understand live performance are embedded with numerous interlocking technologies that at one point were emergent.
Sydney Skybetter:
One of the ways that I got into robotics and the currently emergent technologies such as robotics, is by studying historical emerging technologies. For example, the proscenium stage was itself an emerging technology from the 1600s into the 1700. The proscenium stage was an immensely controversial technology. French cultures argued that the proscenium stage was going to kill ballet, until a hundred years passed and all the cultures themselves died and then everybody kind of forgot what the hullabaloo was about. And now we have proscenium stages everywhere.
Sydney Skybetter:
The point being that all of these technologies that are now naturalized and understood as part of performing arts practice, at one point were emergent. Whether we're talking about the internet, social media, virtual reality, robotics, these are contemporarily emerging technologies and I want to understand how they affect bodies and their performances in various ways.
Sydney Skybetter:
Passing to this, is a crucial turn, namely that within a lot of these computational systems, our bodies are not just performing for other people. For example, in the Zuckerberg Meta universe, where our bodies are represented in some fictitious virtual world represented as avatars that are performing for other avatars that are in fact other people. When we're talking about some of these surveillance technologies in particular, there is no human on the other end of the performance.
Sydney Skybetter:
We are performing constantly for the computational apparatus. I'm thinking, for example, also of Facebook's omnipresent tracking Facebook, which has approaching 2 billion users or something at this point, incessantly tracks the geographic location of each of its users over all of time. Facebook serves advertisements on the basis of our movements through space and time. And this for me is a choreographic function. This is bodies moving in space and time towards certain kinds of meanings.
Sydney Skybetter:
The difference here is though that in contrast to me performing on a stage for an audience of people, all two billion of us on Facebook are constantly performing for a massively artificially intelligent borg that we call Facebook. We are performing for the computational system, the surveillance computational system.
Sydney Skybetter:
This for me is bananas. This is a deep stack of bonkers and my work over the last decade or so has been try and figure out how choreography and dancer league practice give us a critical vocabulary to contend with some of these issues. How are these emerging technologies such as Facebook's AI, how can we tie these now emerging technologies to historical technologies and interventions like the proscenium?
Sydney Skybetter:
So, no, I haven't always been buying military robots, but to me, the military robots and I'm thinking here of the work of Boston Dynamics in particular, which creates dancing robotic performances online and in real life, this is part of a dance historical genealogy that I take really seriously, not only in terms of performance, but in terms of emerging technologies.
Tim Cynova:
Have you always defined it as justice?
Sydney Skybetter:
No. No. I have not always been thinking about this in context of justice. There are a number of crucial black feminist thinkers whose work in scholarship totally not only changed my research game, but completely formulatively undergird what I now understand as my practicing critique.
Sydney Skybetter:
I'm thinking here of Simone Brown who wrote a phenomenal book called Dark Matters that traces the genealogy of emerging technologies back to the 1700s, back to triangle trade. She illustrates how contemporary surveillance technologies have roots in then emerging technologies of the slave gullying, lamp lighting laws.
Sydney Skybetter:
Emerging technologies of surveillance, for example, that are deployed at the TSA, they originate conceptually 300 years ago in specifically anti-black racism. So this book, Dark Matters, illustrates how the practice of anti-blackness specifically not only is it a tale as old as time, but is consistently found in emerging surveillance technologies for the last three or 400 years.
Sydney Skybetter:
So Simone Brown's work has been absolutely instrumental and specifically reading that book in 2016 or whenever it was that it came out, that text really helped reorient me away from "Look at all this cool that technology can do," towards, "Look at all this hellaciously damaging emerging technology that has existed for centuries."
Sydney Skybetter:
We consider the Facebook stuff, for example, to be new and novel, and a lot of the utopian dressing of these emerging technologies emphasizes the newness,
Sydney Skybetter:
The possibility of it all Simone brown is one of many black feminist thinkers who point out actually not only is none of this new, but it's as old and as damaging as the triangle trade itself.
Tim Cynova:
Spending so much time with technologies understanding the negative impacts of them, how they might be used, what's in your stack these days? What tech are you using and not using? And what apps are you like, "That seems cool, but I'm not willing to put up with how that data is being used."
Sydney Skybetter:
That's a great question. And here too, I'm deeply unsatisfied by my own answer. So for example, I'm very aware of how ruinous Facebook and its app ecosystem has been in terms of destabilizing democracies over all over the planet, in terms of inciting and incentivizing racialized violence. I am very aware that Facebook and by extension, all of its corporate partners, including to a certain extent, Oculus, are mired in all manner of specifically racist violence.
Sydney Skybetter:
And yet as someone who could be mistaken for a public intellectual, I have to communicate to people where folks read, where they get content, where they are. And so on one hand, I would very much love to absent myself from the Facebook ecology. And yet I know that when I do that, I will not be as successful in maintaining a critique of the very technology I'm using to manufacture that critique.
Sydney Skybetter:
This doesn't make me happy. I don't like it, but the fact of the matter is that there is not only an economic cost to my not using, in this case, Facebook, but I would be less successful at understanding and critiquing it if I were to absent myself from it.
Sydney Skybetter:
This is maybe convenient on some level. There's a good chance that for example, after a couple years of doing work with the military robotics, that I will stop. I'm not sure how that's going to go, but I want to be clear that just because I'm doing work on these platforms now, I do not necessarily plan to do it forever.
Sydney Skybetter:
I want to be really candid about how this research is unfolding. The robotics work in particular is less than a year old. We have only just started building the curricular scaffolding across my department, which is Theater Arts and Performance Studies and computer science, where these robots actually live.
Sydney Skybetter:
There's a lot of like infrastructure that we are building as a function of this course, as well as the Center for Research and Choreographic Interfaces. And it could be that all of that infrastructure is useful and we do it in perpetuity, but it could also be that we decide that our implication in these systems is so horrific that we dissolve the entire thing.
Sydney Skybetter:
This for me, starts to get at a question of "Well, what is the nature of the work?"
Sydney Skybetter:
Is the nature of the work to continue doing whatever it is that you're doing forever because it's convenient or because of legacy costs, or inertia.
Sydney Skybetter:
And I want to say that I'm working with the robotics right now, and I think it's likely that I'll continue doing that in the future. But if we decide that the harms are greater than the potential benefit of the continuation of the research, we will absolutely stop.
Sydney Skybetter:
And so we haven't stopped any form of this research just yet. It's never far from my mind that we might have to completely pull the plug, and I'm totally willing and game to do that.
Tim Cynova:
Well, you talk about the work as it relates to choreo-robotics. Oftentimes, we refer to the work when we talk about anti-racism, anti-oppression, as the learning and as the journey in particular, as white guys with relative power and privilege, that looks similar and different depending on where we started and how we interact with those around us.
Tim Cynova:
Can you unpack a little bit of what has your journey been like? And you've already a number of books and people who have had influence on your thinking in life. What has that journey been like though, and what are some other things that you found to be really impactful along the way.
Sydney Skybetter:
Maybe to start, I've become mindful of what privilege means in this context, within my body, and institutional position. Functionally, privilege, I think in this context means the ability to make and enact choices. Privilege is my ability to decide what it is that I'm going to do, and then do it.
Sydney Skybetter:
And this, I think comes with no small amount of responsibility when it comes to, again, what we're euphemistically referring to as the work. What does the work, what does that mean?
Sydney Skybetter:
The privilege that I occupy is in relation to hegemonic violence everywhere. So the pervasiveness and subtlety of hegemony, it's like the matrix it's everywhere. Maybe to borrow a little bit from the Wackowski siblings and a little bit from Kimberley Crenshaw, we're all in a prison that for many of us, we can neither feel nor taste nor touch. It's everywhere.
Sydney Skybetter:
But this means that the work of resistance has to be equally ubiquitous. It means that from making decisions about how I structure my payroll, to how I parent my children, I need to always be looking for ways to learn and to do the work. It's all the work.
Sydney Skybetter:
And if that sounds exhausting to the other white folks listening in today, imagine what it's like for the folks, for whom prison isn't a metaphor, the folks for whom the very notion of America was constructed to subjugate.
Sydney Skybetter:
I choose to engage in this work because I was afforded the choice. And also because choosing not to make a choice is a choice too.
Tim Cynova:
I often think of that when something happens and it's exhausting. I'm exhausted. And well, if I'm a white guy, like...
Sydney Skybetter:
It's like, "Really?"
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, yeah. I've actually found that to be helpful. And to help me re-engage in those moments, because it's sort of, "Okay, come on. Not really that exhausted. This is work that is required of us," but at the same time, you're like, "How do you balance that with self-care, especially mid a global pandemic where all of our lives are being impacted in new and different ways?" I find that a challenge, but also part of the responsibility.
Sydney Skybetter:
Totally. And that question of care, speaking of ubiquity, I think this question of care it's capacious, and I think useful when thinking about how we engage or do the work under capitalism. And this gets me back to the parasitism thing for a bit, how we understand self-care is popularly like taking a yoga class or whatever, and that's the consumer culture answer to self-care. But if you think about like the things that are making us exhausted, if you think about the things that are making us tired, a yoga class doesn't address systemic racism. A yoga class doesn't address racial capitalism. So if you find yourself tired, yeah yoga can be great, but it's maybe worth thinking about the difference between addressing a symptom of that exhaustion and a cause. The cause is always capitalism.
Tim Cynova:
Well, let's play out this a little bit more, or let's pull this out a little bit more as we think about those who might be listing in particular, those white guys who might be listening, who are earlier in the journey in understanding how they're moving through the system and how there's white advantage to just being the color that they are. What advice, what reflections, what prompts do you think might be helpful as people are wrestling with this understanding and early journey?
Sydney Skybetter:
I run it to a lot of folks who share similar positions of privilege, who are not sure about their implication in these things and not really sure if they're implicated in these structures or not, or if they have work to do. When it comes to starting off, part of that initial catalyst is understanding just how deeply we are all necessarily, definitionally implicated in these structures of privilege and violence.
Sydney Skybetter:
And for those who have doubt, Robert De Niro has this line in the film Ronan, which is a very bad film, and I do not recommend it, except for this line. Bob De Niro, I call him Bob, because we're friends, he plays an ex CIA spook or something. I don't know. And he's doing an op and something doesn't feel right. And as a result of his decades of experience, he gets the wrong feeling from an op, and he says something to the effect of, "If there is doubt, then there is no doubt."
Sydney Skybetter:
And what he means by this is that if you have a sense that something's wrong, if you have a sense that you're implicated in these things, if you have a sense that something is going to go awry, then if it is.
Sydney Skybetter:
So if you have a sense specifically as a white man or somebody who occupies these positions of a structural privilege, if you have a sense that there's something for you to do in this arena, if you have a sense that there's work for you to do, then I promise you are totally right. There is. And if you don't think that there's work for you to do you're some combination of wrong or lying to yourself.
Sydney Skybetter:
I think the first step is to understand that whether you think you are implicated in these systems or not, you are. The system only benefits by you thinking there isn't a system in place.
Tim Cynova:
Let's talk about those systems because I've mentioned before we're two years almost into a global pandemic where we've seen the system in different ways, where people who might not have seen the systems, all of a sudden are interacting with things and coming to realize that there's stuff at play that they might not have known.
Tim Cynova:
As you think about the work and you intersecting with these systems, how have they looked different, amid a global pandemic?
Sydney Skybetter:
I'll talk a about the work at CRCI in particular. So our last convening was in early March of 2020. This is an international conference and we were literally a single person's being late to a meeting away from being a super spreading event. And we shut down our operations for a full year, because at first we just didn't really have a framework yet to continue the work, specifically of convening and gathering and discussing, but also we shut down because other organizations were doing phenomenal work in this arena and had infrastructure that were perfectly capable of continuing to distribute their communications and build community. AI Now, the Algorithmic Justice League, Data and Society, these are organizations with very similar politics and interventions as ours. And so for a big chunk of the early pandemic, our website was basically like, "Okay, if you like CRCI, you should give all of your attention and money to AI Now and Algorithmic Justice League. Go support those other folks. We are not in a position to productively intervene right now. They are. Go to them."
Sydney Skybetter:
Now some, two years later, our infrastructure now is totally virtual. We figured out new workflows, like so many of us have, and we have a convening coming up in May actually, but it's very small, in-person, but with a huge online footprint. We're still figuring it out.
Sydney Skybetter:
Functionally though, in this early phase, as now, we've oriented ourselves to be of service and support. So if anything, the pandemic moment has shown us the importance of being of service and being candid with ourselves about whether or not we are, or aren't the best people to do the work that we're striving to. It could be that actually convening stuff is not best done by us, but instead by others.
Sydney Skybetter:
The point is that the relative success of my work or my adventures is not the objective here. I'm not here for the success of CRCI or for my own research agenda. The point of the work is to get the work done, and whoever is capable of engaging of being activated, given the shifting mercurial tides at the COVID moment, those are the folks that I want to be in support of.
Tim Cynova:
One of the quotes I've been sharing to get people's reactions to is from a colleague Courtney Harge. She's the CEO OF/BY/FOR ALL, former colleague, coworker at Fractured Atlas, brilliant person, and she and I were talking about a session that we were doing and got all the way to the session where we were talking about how do you create policies and practices and procedures and language in an organization while centering anti-racism anti-oppression and all the way to the end. And someone raised their hand and said, "This has all been really interesting, but can you like give some tangible examples?" At this moment. We're like, "How have I failed you all? The entire thing was tangible examples of how to do this thing." And so Courtney and I are talking about this and she said, "I think people confuse tangible with impactful, and impactful with visible. Adding pronouns to emails, tangible. Ending gender discrimination is impactful. Increasing in gender diversity at an organization is visible."
Tim Cynova:
As you think about your work and approach at Brown and with the institute, what resonates with you in these distinctions?
Sydney Skybetter:
First off, Courtney's fucking brilliant. I love that framework. That's a really great framework. I'm reminded of a throwaway line of Foucault's, that's been reimagined and reinterpreted by Black Feminist Surveillance Scholarship. The line is something like, "Visibility is a trap." Now Foucault was thinking about cercarial surveillance and more contemporary usages illustrate that applicability to the quotidian, our daily lives.
Sydney Skybetter:
But simultaneous to that, Ruha Benjamin has this other great line in her Race After Technology, that black folks live in the future. And what she means by this is that emerging surveillance technologies are almost always first deployed and perfected on communities of color.
Sydney Skybetter:
But we have to remember, and this is for you know, white folks on the fence that as though that deployment of military technologies and communities of color wasn't bad enough, eventually, always, these surveillance technologies turn on society at large. And that means you.
Sydney Skybetter:
I think about visibility a lot, both at the level of surveillance, but also within our organizational structure. CRCI is able to do our work because at some level, Brown University doesn't really understand what it is that we do or are seeking to do. And our impact in working against structures that perpetuate institutional racism within these emerging technologies is on some level, contingent on our ability to not be visible performing as such.
Sydney Skybetter:
And so you can imagine as previously discussed, this is a pretty fucking delicate balance here, and one that is incredibly emergent and that I feel very uncertain in. This is something that we are working on or towards. But here too, I'm guided by Anna Watkins Fisher, by the theorizing of the parasitic. I'm thinking of Legacy Russell and Glitch Feminism. I'm thinking of Simone Brown's Dark Matters, D'Ignazio's Data Feminism. There's no shortage of phenomenal feminist scholarship on and around these issues.
Sydney Skybetter:
Functionally though, what these texts have taught me is that a straightforward, sequential understanding of the relationship between tangibility and visibility, and impactfulness. And these things are not always proportional and that proportionality or sequencialness is misleading. Sometimes you have to mix up the ratio to get the work done.
Tim Cynova:
We are coming up to the end of our time together, landing the plane. What else is on your mind? How do you want to close this one?
Sydney Skybetter:
Two things come to mind first, this choreo-robotics course in the spring, I'm really excited about it specifically because it's very, very hard. It is easily the most complicated course, but potentially also project I've ever done at Brown.
Sydney Skybetter:
And one of the things that makes me really excited about it though, is that we're engaging a number of artists who are there for the tango, whose artistic practices resonate with the problematics of the course itself.
Sydney Skybetter:
So for example, we're bringing in a phenomenal choreographer, [Gene 00:34:30] Castro and technologist, Stephan Moore. They came to us with the challenge of creating a robotic orchestra that is capable of improvising with Gene's dancers, and the specific nature of that improvisation is the ability of a robot to play an instrument that comes from Puerto Rico called the [Guerrowhich 00:34:47] is functionally an emptied out gourd that you strike with a comb.
Sydney Skybetter:
And so, because we are trying to center artistic research within this course that's notionally about robotics, we are using this prompt to center and structure the entire course. And so if you imagine the numerous interlocking super, super duper hard technical challenges that come from a robot that's capable of improvising with dancers. Just name a few, it's like first there has to be a robot that's capable of holding onto the go and holding onto a comb. And then they have to run into each other through a series of gestures that create sound.
Sydney Skybetter:
But how does a robot know if it's making the right sounds? Well, it has to be able to hear what it's doing. So you have to have various senses like sonic sensors, beat detection that are capable of sonically registering whether or not the instrument is being played correctly, and then the robot has to be able to correct itself if it's playing the instrument wrong.
Sydney Skybetter:
But then we also need sensors that are capable of discerning multiple simultaneous dancers moving across time and space. So the robot has to be able to figure in relation to those dancers, what it is doing. Also, there's other robots doing things with instruments. So you can tell that the number of computational and technical challenges here that specifically emerge as a result of Gene's work, it's really, really, really, really hard.
Sydney Skybetter:
Again, gene's artistic practice is the thing that is galvanizing the technical research. But the meta-cranal here, and this speaks to Gene's specific practice as a Puerto Rican woman, she's also very deeply concerned with what happens when you extract cultural data, such as how to play an instrument like the guero, which is indigenous to Puerto Rico. How you automate that you turn that practice into data and then apply it to an automated system like a robot. This is an extractive violence of a sort. So specifically, how does she create a performance that is about those structural violences while also participating and partaking in them?
Sydney Skybetter:
So this is, again, a question of implication and parasitism. She is using the robotics research to get at a larger point about colonial exploitation.
Sydney Skybetter:
We're going to be presenting this work in some fashion at the 2022 conference Research On Choreographic Interfaces, which is May 6th and 7th. We have a title for this convening that I'm really proud of. It's, CRCI 22: This is Going To Be Pretty Awkward.
Sydney Skybetter:
On some level, the conference is about opacity, it's about implication, it's about these black boxy awkwardnesses, but it's also, and we're going to have to acknowledge this in all sorts of ways, it's going to be really weird having people in shared space and time.
Sydney Skybetter:
I don't know how you do that, but we're going to figure it out. So all to say that the next stuff coming up is this choreo-robotics course. And the CRCI Conference. In terms of what's next, I want to be candid here. So much of this work is coalitional in nature. Not just the robotics stuff, not just the military research stuff, not just the choreographic research or whatever, but the work of being first in relation, and then working against the structures of power that we've been discussing for the last hour. This is coalitional work. It's affinity bound. It is organizing.
Sydney Skybetter:
I'm in many ways, new to this. I'm still very much learning how to do this. This is a very nascent practice, relatively speaking, for me. But if there's anything that I can do be of support to others who are taking up this work, who are interested in this work, if there's anything that I can do to learn more, or better, or faster how to understand my own implication and participation in these systems, I'm totally here for it.
Sydney Skybetter:
My email address literally is skybetter@brown.edu, and if anybody wants to talk more about these things, if there's anything that I can or should be doing, I hope they'll reach out and let me know.
Tim Cynova:
Cindy, thank you for the offering. Thank you for the fascinating look in into these different lenses that impact work in society and structures.
Tim Cynova:
It's always fun to get the band back together. Thank you so much for taking time. A friend, it's a pleasure to chat with you about this work. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Sydney Skybetter:
Totally. My pleasure. Thanks so much, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and enjoying the fun too, give it a thumbs up or a five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers.
Tim Cynova:
Until next time. Thanks for listening.
The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:
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Values-Based Hiring: Re-Imagining the Search Process (EP.58)
In this episode, we dive into re-imagining the hiring process, in particular, how it might be designed if we dusted off executive search to co-create a process that centers our values of equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and anti-oppression.
Updated
March 28, 2022
In this episode, we dive into re-imagining the hiring process, in particular, how it might be designed if we dusted off executive search to co-create a process that centers our values of equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and anti-oppression.
Find out more about Work Shouldn't Suck's hiring-based offerings here, including full-service executive search, our hiring process consultation, and our brand new values-based hiring course launching this April.
Guests: Katrina Donald & Tim Cynova
Guest Host: Jamie Gamble
Guests
KATRINA DONALD (she/her): Based in Treaty 7 Territory, Katrina is the Principal Consultant at ever-so-curious, and believes that listening and sensemaking practices bring us into community, reveal pathways forward, encourage and embolden us, and allow for greater impact. Her approach is relational and developmental; she works in partnership with people and organizations to co-design inclusive, collaborative, and continuously emerging evaluation and HR strategies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Manitoba and a Masters Certificate in Organization Development and Change from the Canadian Organization Development Institute (CODI) and the Schulich Executive and Education Centre (SEEC) at York University. She is a mother, wife, daughter, sister, systems thinker, developmental evaluator, program designer, and a Registered Professional Recruiter (RPR). She’s committed to showing up for her own ongoing learning and to building workplaces that are actively anti-racist, praxis-centered, and humble as they work through the prickly bramble of change.
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design, and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Guest Host
JAMIE GAMBLE (Guest Host) Jamie Gamble is the Principal Consultant of New Brunswick based Imprint Consulting, and since 2002 has served organizations involved in the arts, climate change, environmental protection, economic development, public health, youth leadership, citizen engagement, and sport with consulting in strategy, evaluation, and organizational change. Jamie’s specialization is developmental evaluation, and he has authored several publications on evaluation including A Developmental Evaluation Primer and A Developmental Evaluation Companion.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck., a podcast about, well, that. In this episode, we dive into reimagining the hiring process. In particular, what might it look like if we dusted off executive search to co-create a process that centers our values of equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and anti-oppression? If you're interested in learning more about our hiring-based offerings at Work. Shouldn't. Suck., whether it's full-service executive search, or our hiring process consultation, or our brand new values-based hiring course we're teaching this April, I invite you to visit workshouldntsuck.co\hiring- assistance. For today's conversation, I'm joined by my brilliant colleague, Katrina Donald, and handover hosting duties to the always awesome Jamie Gamble. We spend the bulk of the conversation unpacking a fascinating and fun exploration in reimagining search that Katrina and I had the pleasure of working on with our friends at Opera Philadelphia as we help them find their first ever vice president of people operation and inclusion. Throughout the conversation, we explore how the learning from that search can inform so much of the hiring that's going on in the world today. So let's jump into the conversation. Over to you, Jamie.
Jamie Gamble:
Hi everyone, and welcome to a special edition of Work. Shouldn't. Suck. podcast. My name is Jamie Gamble, and I'm here today with Katrina Donald and Tim Cynova. And we're going to have a chat about reimagining the search process in a way that centers your values, something that Tim and Katrina have been working on very intensively over the last several months. Tim and Katrina, welcome. Let's start with maybe just telling me a little bit about you in this process. Who are you in a reimagined search process, and what are you up to? Tim, do you want to start us off?
Tim Cynova:
Thanks for hosting, Jamie. This is exciting to be on the podcast in this way.
Jamie Gamble:
It's awesome to have you.
Tim Cynova:
Thanks for the invitation.
Jamie Gamble:
I hope you're back again.
Tim Cynova:
Me too. It's exciting to have a chance to talk about what Katrina and I have been up to the past several months, and deep thinking that we've been doing along the lines of reimagining what a hiring process might be like when every single piece of it is looked at through the lens of your values, and specifically equity, inclusion, anti-racism. This is just a slice of what I get to do with Work. Shouldn't. Suck., and it's been really exciting. Doing this work has been probably one of the top five most fun things that I've ever done in my career. And I've been able to do some really fun things, but taking this thing that we think of as, "It's the hiring process. Most people hire the same way that they did in 1982, so it hasn't changed much in the past 40 years," and having a chance to really sit deeply with these things, and thinking about how do you take HR, and developmental evaluation, and anti-racism, and anti-oppression, and co-creating all of this together in a way that creates something new has been really exciting.
Tim Cynova:
And so that's how I'm showing up today in the conversation.
Jamie Gamble:
Thanks, Tim. Katrina, you've been working really closely with Tim on this, but just tell us about who you are. And you've got an HR background, a developmental evaluation background. You've got lots of stuff on the go. How does that fit into this amazing project?
Katrina Donald:
I describe myself as part R&D facilitator, part system change nerd, part witness, wayfinder, and I'm also a certified recruiter. So when I put all of those things together, when Tim mentioned this opportunity, I thought this was a really cool space to be able to converge that skillset and create something new in service of principles that I think are really, really important and critical to today's work landscape and overall the way that the world is shifting. So I was stoked to get the invitation, and I've really enjoyed taking this process that I know so well from my previous work and pausing at all of these intersections, like Tim mentioned, to ask the questions.
Katrina Donald:
How do we make this a more inclusive process? How do we be a little bit more transparent so that people know what's going on in this process, without having to A, be directly involved, or B, be completely cut out and yearning for that information? We've been really asking ourselves as we've been going along these questions, and that really brings in developmental evaluation and how it supports change in organizations. This kind of process really moves from that talking the talk, maybe more performative way of showing commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppression work, and moving it into action and ways that the teams can practice and experience an alternative that will create the space for them to do it differently in the future.
Jamie Gamble:
Amazing. It sounds very cool. And we're going to dive deep into learning all about it and your journey, because you had a chance to experiment with sort of a first prototype, if you will, of this whole idea. But let's start with the why. Why does it need to be reimagined? Tim, you said people are hiring the way they did in 1982, with probably some obvious changes like the internet and maybe the use of algorithms, but you're talking about something fundamentally different. What needed changing, from your point of view?
Tim Cynova:
At the moment in time we're recording this, two years into a global pandemic where people are talking about the Great Resignation or the great adjustment where people are reevaluating what they want their life and work to be like, there's a lot of organizations out there that are trying to hire. They're trying to find people, and so they're asking these questions at a moment when they're really stressed and strapped for resources. You fall back on your defaults a lot of times in those moments, so trying to figure out what learning might come out of this to help organizations that maybe don't have the time or the resources to really dive into how could you do it in a way that centers the values that your organization holds, and in a way that becomes something new.
Tim Cynova:
A lot of times in conversations about hiring, people say, "I get the same people. I post, I get the same group of people every time. Where are you posting to get different people?" And that's so far downstream of what you should really be thinking about and how you should really be crafting every part of it to say, "All right, I'm just posting in the wrong places." You might be, but also there's so much more to this process. Over the past decade plus, I've had a really wonderful opportunity when I was the co-CEO of Fractured Atlas to work with a people team and an organization that was really questioning everything that we were doing. I spent a lot of time diving into unpacking the hiring process. Early in our work toward becoming an anti-racist organization at Fractured Atlas in 2013, I realized that we had built an amazing hiring process that was riddled with bias, and really some problematic things that we were really proud of up until the point that we uncovered all of this.
Tim Cynova:
Wow. When you look at our hiring process through a lens of characteristics of White supremacy culture, it's pretty problematic. Yet we had thought, "Wow, it's really great. It's hiring some amazing people." And it was hiring some amazing people, but it was also creating false positives and false negatives. And so that was a really a moment where we started to pull apart every single piece of our hiring process to say, "What questions do we ask? Who's in the room asking the questions? What's the candidate experience like? How do we onboard people at the very end of this process to make sure we're leveraging this trust and psychological safety and goodwill that we hope we've built during the hiring process to help set people up for success, and so that they'll thrive in the organization?" And that was really the moment where we started to experiment.
Jamie Gamble:
Thanks, Tim. Katrina, you mentioned developmental evaluation and this HR background. Similar question to what I asked Tim around reimagining the search process, but maybe bring in how this idea of developmental evaluation fits, and what drew you into being a partner with Tim and his work.
Katrina Donald:
One of the things that I remember from when I was doing a lot of recruiting was this idea that there were so many ways to understand the organizational culture. Whatever I was telling candidates about the organization came through my lens with my bias, and I was doing everything that I could do to learn about what that opportunity was and how to frame that opportunity. And some of the feedback that I got over the years was that either my story was different from what the candidate experienced, or I was projecting my dreams, desires for this opportunity. And sometimes, it didn't feel like that when the candidate came in. When I think about the developmental evaluation aspect of this, and what really drew me into the process, was the idea of surfacing multiple perspectives about the role, the ways that employees themselves are describing the culture and what it's like to work there, the way we're talking about some of the strategic initiatives that are unfolding in this moment, and how people are experiencing that to give the candidates a real sense or a closer sense of what they're walking into.
Katrina Donald:
So there's an opportunity to bring multiple voices in, have multiple perspectives in the sense-making of what we're hearing from candidates and what we're thinking is really important and critical to the role, but there's also this idea of bringing feedback into the process. And so there's a lot of ways that bias is carried through a process. You might have a really good connection with the candidate, and the next thing you know, you're totally off script and something else is happening, and that there's affinity being felt for lots of different reasons. But this idea of consistency in the process, of asking questions of everybody that are the same, and so that you're presenting a candidate the opportunity to respond to the same question... And then getting that data from the next candidate response to the same question allows the team to really think about what they're hearing in what context, and what they're learning about those candidates within the context of that search process.
Jamie Gamble:
Lots of learning for the hiree and those being hired. And that transparency and feedback you speak to sounds so important there. This was an idea, Tim... We kind of got to tinker with it at Fractured Atlas, hone the craft, if you will. And then you actually had a chance to do it as sort of a classic, not so classic search process with Opera Philadelphia. How did that start? Let's explore this case study, because I'm sure you learned a lot there. How did that begin?
Tim Cynova:
It started with just essentially a cold call email. Someone went to the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. site and submitted a line or two about, "I'm interested in some assistance for a new HR inclusion role that I'm looking to hire." And that person was David Devan, the general director and president of Opera Philadelphia, who I didn't know previously. And we had a really fun conversation, where we talked about what they were looking to do, where they were as an organization, what they're looking for from assistance. Between that moment and the next conversation, David had signed up for our shared leadership and action course that my colleague Lauren Ruffin and I taught, that Katrina also was a participant in.
Tim Cynova:
And so the four of us had this month together in, I think, June of 2021, where we were spending time thinking about how organizations can share power, leadership, and decision-making, and that's just a really great opportunity to think through other aspects of organizational design where you're centering values of equity and inclusion and anti-racism. And that led to the next conversation that David and I had together, where between that first conversation and the course, I had connected with Katrina, who I knew from our work working with a large organization in Canada, creating a leadership program. And Katrina, as she's mentioned, has these really great skills and is brilliant to add this combination of developmental evaluation, a certified recruiter, and was game when I said, "Hey, would you be interested in working on this project together and reimagining what executive search might look like?"
Tim Cynova:
As my colleague Lauren Ruffin has said multiple times, executive search, and really hiring in general, is pretty dusty. We've said this at the top. It's largely unchanged, but what happens if you dust it off and try something new? And it just sort of went from there, where we put in a proposal and bid on the work, and were accepted, and then started our relationship with them and trying to figure out what it looked like when we actually did this thing, where you reimagine every single piece of the process. And really exciting that in January 2022, they welcomed in their brand new vice president of HR and inclusion. That was a new role for their organization, and they're now gelling as a team and moving that work forward.
Katrina Donald:
One of the things I'll add to that is this idea that the role itself was so interesting because it was an HR role, a senior-level HR role that was also bridging the equity officer role in the organization. And so what we had was an organization that didn't have the current HR role to support this process, and to really speak about how this role would be located in the organization. Opera Philadelphia had a hunch that combining these two portfolios would be a way to ensure that this role and the ideas of anti-racism and anti-oppression were embedded at all of the stages of the senior leadership conversations. And so they knew they wanted that at the top level to be able to step into their commitment, but we had to really build what that looked like. And so one of these DE opportunities was in thinking about the role itself, and over the course of the conversation and over the course of the interviews and that process, it actually ended up that that role shifted to a new title.
Katrina Donald:
So it went from being the vice president of HR and inclusion to being a vice president of people operations and inclusion. And there's lots of reasons for that, but it was one of the things that really surfaced, was that this was about people and humans, and the way that these values were grounding everything that they were doing. It was a way in the organization's perspective to address that tension between the compliance part of HR and the equity pieces, which often were two sides of the same coin. And so this position was really created as a way to ground that conversation in the organization.
Tim Cynova:
With the organization, with David up front, they were game. You could tell that they were game to experiment, especially because this was a brand new position. They had hypotheses about what it could look like. They had an active equity and inclusion committee that was providing feedback. They were giving a lot of thought to this, and they weren't set in, "This is what the process needs to look like in order to drop off a candidate in this role." That allowed us to really co-create this process together with them, which set up one of the other things that we were hoping to do, where first was: Can we totally reimagine executive search to center these values? But the second was: Can we co-create this process for the organization that can inform their future searches? So with or without needing to rehire a firm to help them, but can this process really build and exercise this new muscle and these new processes that can form executive searches that they do, or any other searches?
Tim Cynova:
And then that other piece was we could just tell by talking with them that they were open. They weren't necessarily always comfortable, but they were open with being transparent around this process with their team internally, and then as we'll get to, externally as well. We published some videos where they had multiple members talking about what this role meant. And they were conflicting in a lot of places, but they were open with saying, "This is where we are as an organization. Let's be as transparent as possible within the confines of hiring process confidentiality, but let's be transparent so that the people who are interested in this role can be attracted to working with us if they don't already know about us."
Tim Cynova:
And then this last piece that we kept coming back to is: What's the learning from this for the 99% of organizations out there who don't have the time or resources to really dive this deeply into it? And this is where Katrina and I have really been sitting most recently, is as the dust is settling on this process and other processes that we've been a part of, how do you distill this into something that other people can use, if it's not going to be a multi-month executive search process, but hoping to do the in a month-long hiring process?
Jamie Gamble:
Katrina, Tim was really highlighting sort of a unique readiness, perhaps, of Opera Philadelphia. Anything that you would add to who they are as an organization, and why this process was a good fit for them, and what might have enabled them receiving this whole thing?
Katrina Donald:
The readiness that we were noticing from Opera Philadelphia were things like an ongoing commitment to conversation within their organization. Tim mentioned the equity and inclusion committee, which was a key way that the organization had begun to have conversations to see where this role needed to go, and all of the spaces that conversation was being surfaced in the organization. We knew they were taking action. We knew they were having conversations. We knew that David was interested in these models of sharing power and having more equitable process incorporated in processes like search, but also in how he was thinking about the organization in general. They had a demonstrated history of training and working with the concepts from their own perspectives, but also as a group. So these were all parts of what Tim and I were assessing as we were learning about whether or not we would be able to create a process where the committee could be open, where we could bring in processes that really, as Tim said, didn't make people feel comfortable all the time, but where people were willing to stretch and experiment with us.
Jamie Gamble:
Tim, what were the steps? Maybe just highlight for me what was different about this than a more traditional search process.
Tim Cynova:
I think this is one of the funniest things about it, because if you just look at the steps, it's pretty much the same as any other search, but as you dive into it, the approach is totally different. Much like a lot of searches, we started with team interviews, scoping the role, taking a look at the knowledge, skills, and abilities that this role would need. And again, this was a brand new role for the organization that combined two different things, HR and inclusion. Even through the entire search, it was like, "What's the right balance," because we had a lot of really amazing candidates who were coming in that had different weightings for all these things. And so getting really clear from the start: What are our anchors for this role that we're sort of going to run everything through? What are the knowledge, skills, and abilities?
Tim Cynova:
Then going to the content creation, we did a lot more than just creating a job posting. There were audio versions. There were different written versions. There were videos. That was probably a month to pull all of that content together, and edit it, and get it in the right format. Then there's about another month of recruitment and sourcing, and really taking a look at what can this process look like when everyone's mapping their networks, not just the recruiters, but everyone in the organization, and then combining this with what's the collateral that people need to make it as easy as possible to share this opportunities with their networks. Then we went through screener conversations with candidates that were coming in that... Because we were trying to make it as easy as possible for people to submit their materials, we didn't have anything, really, besides, "Just let us know if you're interested."
Tim Cynova:
You could submit video, you could submit resume, cover letter. You could email us. So there are multiple modes for people to submit interest. So the screener process was trying to figure out: Okay, so we have all of these candidates. We need to assess who really meets those anchors and KSAs. And then it went from the screener into... The screener process that Katrina and I really led just between the two of us, but were connecting with the search committee, we had three rounds for interviews, reference checks, offer, and then really working with the team and the organization to create a solid onboarding plan that would stretch out from even before [inaudible 00:21:15] arrived six months later.
Tim Cynova:
What are the conversations that you should be having at week two, first month, second month, third month that tie back to the things we were discussing and exploring in the job interview process? And what are some of those things that you want to identify that new people in the organization have such clarity on? Everything's new to them, so how can you capture those findings and those reflections? So that's what was built into the onboarding process. So on the surface, looks like many search processes that any other organization would run until you really dive into: Well, how did you do that thing?
Jamie Gamble:
So dive in, Katrina. What were the innovations? What did you disrupt? What did you change? What did you redo, if you will, as you went through this?
Katrina Donald:
Often, there are a lot of things that confuse people's understanding of what you need to do the role. We get hung up on a certain level of education, or a certain level of certification, and sort of forget that there are lots of other ways that people book can build training in their portfolio, can build experience, can build working knowledge of key concepts. And so we really tried... Even thinking about the KSAs, what we were putting in there... Because it was coded language for something else, and how we might simplify and use a way to describe what we needed without conflating it with all of these other things that confused the issue. Another piece we tried was when you look at posting a position, there's often a laundry list of requirements that people are using. And what we tried to do there is say, "We know that when you have all of these different steps for building an application, that excludes people who don't have the time, or who can't allocate their energy in those spaces on the timeline that you provide to give you all of that essentially free labor in presenting their application."
Katrina Donald:
And so we wanted to reduce the friction of finding the opportunity to be really interesting and the actual act of expressing interest in that position. That's why we said, "Any way that you would like to express interest in this is a way that we will accept." And then in that first screening process, Tim and I were listening for what it was that was intriguing those candidates. And so it was really, "Tell us about how you understand this position, and tell us about how you see your story really contributing to your understanding of this role and where you think this role could go in the future." That allowed us to sort of say, "Can we imagine what this conversation might look like?"
Katrina Donald:
The other thing is that we didn't give a detailed summary of our conversations to the team. We said, "We've spoken to this person, and they have a really great understanding of the role. They have a unique perspective they can bring, and our recommendation is that we bring them into this process." And so it was really the team who got to hear for themselves how those candidates were really conceiving of the role, and how they contributed to it.
Tim Cynova:
There was a lot of trust and rapport-building that we were doing with their five-person search committee in those first couple of months to get to the place where they would trust us that you don't need to be on the call for the screeners, or you don't need a long debrief, but that the KSAs and those three anchors around HR expertise, anti-racism leadership, and a connection to opera and or Philadelphia were being met throughout those screener calls. It really was sort of modeling how do we quickly build trust and psychological safety and rapport with people who we didn't know. No one knew us from that group, except for David, who had been in the course. And I think that piece then when it gets to the job posting... There's old research that... Old-ish, I guess, research that shows White guys will apply to a job that they're like 60% qualified for, but women and people of color, that research showed that almost 100% of those qualifications needed to be met.
Tim Cynova:
Why not include this really long list? Because it starts to exclude people. So what's key to this role that people have to have? And then you can layer on more as you get into the process, but make it as easy as possible to get people who are interested in the role, who have the KSAs to get into the process, and then use the interviews and other things during the interview process to start refining who's in that group. But also, there's been a lot of talk around pay transparency and pay equity. So in that job posting, they included how much this role would be paid, what the benefits are, who this role reports to, which is an interesting thing I've found missing from a lot of job postings, especially when you're not quite clear where this role fits. And I find this in a lot of for-profit companies. Is a vice president associate, essentially, or is this the number two next to the president in the organization?
Tim Cynova:
So including who the role reports to, how much it's going to be paid, especially now where it's located. Can it be remote? Is it hybrid? If it's hybrid and changing to be on site, what's that date so that people have what they need, and then don't ask them for exhaustive labor before you even know if you're going to be interviewed? I recently came across the job posting for the head of HR for the US Department of Homeland Security. And the amount of labor they were asking for applicants to produce before they even might be considered for this role, probably... Unless you somehow had it already or were a really fast writer, you're talking hours. How many amazing candidates just tapped out and said, "No, I don't have the time. I'm not going to do that. That's a lot of work for maybe nothing"? What might the process look like to, say, get people in there, and then start to uncover those things that you think are so key to people being successful in the role?
Katrina Donald:
What Tim is saying about providing all of that information up front actually results in this posting that looks and feels different as well. And I think that was one of the things that we were really trying to do differently, was: How does this position stand out and attract applicants in a way that maybe it wouldn't if it was just a traditional, very linear way of thinking about the role? And so what that meant was there was actually quite a lot of heavy lifting in creating that position description and the posting, because we were making sure that it was accessible. We had audio recordings of that. We had text that had highlighting so that it was easier to read for people. We had different ways that you could take in the information about the role.
Katrina Donald:
So we had attachments that people could download and consider for themselves, without losing that in just that basic text. So there was quite a lot of effort and energy that went into making sure that anybody who might be interested could look at that posting and consider that opportunity in a way that was gentle for them and interesting for them, that allowed them to express interest.
Tim Cynova:
I think one of the keys too that was a part of that job posting was everything was on one page, so that you could land on the job posting page and you didn't have to go looking other places for videos or a podcast. Because including all the stuff that Katrina just said, there was a podcast episode with David Devan talking about this role in Opera Philadelphia. There are four videos that we recorded with a selection of, I think, 10 members of the Opera Philadelphia team addressing very specific questions related to this role, like "What does this role mean to you and Opera Philadelphia?" So there's all of these materials in different media on one page that when candidates were looking at the role, they could scroll through it and they didn't have to hunt and peck around the website. And when you think about it, job search is a full-time job, oftentimes. You might be interested in a role, but you might not have the time to dig deeply into this organization before you have an interview.
Tim Cynova:
Having everything in one place for people was really helpful, and we found that people told us they only applied because of the job posting. They saw it was different. They could watch videos, read transcripts of these conversations that sometimes don't even happen in an entire job process, let alone before you even decide if you want to work at an organization and apply. All of this created just sort of a different interaction with candidates and the process, which when it came to the interview phase was really cool, because you had candidates coming into the very first round who knew so much more about the organizations, its challenges, what this role would be. They came with questions related to that, not, "What's this role?" And so you could use your time differently in this. One of the coolest things I think happened for me in this was when you saw candidates come in and quote search committee members back to them.
Tim Cynova:
They had internalized these videos so well, they're like, "Darren, when do you said in this interview blah, blah, blah, what did you mean by that?" It was just a different feeling for everyone in that process. And we know this because we also debriefed with candidates throughout the process, and we're like, "How's this going for you? Is there anything you might want to know that you don't know?" And I think this is where the developmental evaluation sort of made it feel like you're building the plane while you're flying it. And we said this many times. We sort of knew where we were supposed to go, knew what the arc was, but each phase and each stage informed what was next. So it was a lot of, "Okay, we need to retool this, because this is the thing we need to now get from candidates, or this is what candidates need to get from us."
Tim Cynova:
It was really this organic evolution that was kind of exhausting. It's not sort of a set template that you can go with, but was so much more responsive to the needs of everyone, candidates, search committee, organization. And I think that led to a process that just felt differently, and felt more human and understanding of everyone in the process.
Jamie Gamble:
You mentioned the search committee having their interviews quoted back to them. What did you notice in the search committee as this evolved over time? What was their feeling, their emotion, their engagement, their shifts? What happened for them?
Katrina Donald:
The search committee included members of the organization from across functions and from different levels of the organizational structure. And so we were constantly working with the group sense-making around people who had done a lot of hiring in a certain way in the past, and for people that this process was brand new for. So we were managing and asking them to self-manage as well the way that power was distributed in those conversations. So people had goals around stepping forward and stepping back to allow other voices. And over the course of the process, we really saw the opportunities where people were stepping in in different ways, or when stepping in was actually stepping out. And we were seeing with those spots where this structure really creates a holding pattern, and so we were learning a lot with the committee as we were going about what it was like to work in collaboration across the organizations in this way.
Katrina Donald:
One of my favorite moments in the search was when candidates actually remarked that they missed a search member that wasn't able to be in their interview for whatever reason. They were saying, "Oh, I'm really disappointed that this person couldn't be here, because I really appreciate the perspective that somebody at this level of the organization is really bringing to this search. It's making me think about the different entry points for this role, and the different kinds of conversations that this person would have." I think the other thing we noticed throughout the process was when we used the rubrics for weighing the candidate interviews, the conversations that we were able to have were really evidence-based. We heard people say, "I noticed this in this candidate. I noticed the way that they were listening to the questions that were being asked, or the information that was being offered. I really appreciated this question that they brought to the table, because it shows me that this is something that they're really curious about. And I know that's something that we are really curious about, and so there's an alignment that's created there."
Katrina Donald:
We were listening to this feedback, and we were listening to the ways that they were hearing differently, maybe, and listening differently based on the prompts that we were able to give them that rooted back to the KSAs that we were going for and the organizational values that were grounding the process.
Tim Cynova:
I think the other piece on this too was the search committee members, and that this decision was going to be made by two people. That was also listed on the job posting, all of that information. It detailed who these five people were and the roles that they had in their organization, and said David Devan and Veronica Chapman-Smith were going to be the two deciders for this role. They're really using this as an opportunity to exercise sharing power and sharing decision-making. That was clear to people coming into the process. That was also this dynamic that we were working with, because it was a little unusual to be in this process where you have two decision-makers, and you have a model that... Opera Philadelphia uses a modified RACI model for responsibility mapping and decision-making, and that was really being lived out in this way.
Tim Cynova:
So you had deciders and you had consultative members of this, and everyone in the process knew this. It wasn't a secret. And part of this commitment to transparency was on a biweekly-ish basis, Katrina and I were drafting updates that would go to the entire Opera Philadelphia team. We would detail what has happened, what the update was. And one of the really cool things was at the end of every update, there was a prompt for people to provide feedback on whatever phase we were in, and it was anonymous feedback. We set up a Google Form, and it might have been, "Where would you post this role?" So we could get that in and say, "Have we covered these yet, or should we look to do that?" Or the next one was, "What kind of questions would you be interested in asking the candidates?"
Tim Cynova:
And so we could take that in, and if we hadn't already included that, work that into the process. And then the next update would start with, "Here's how this feedback was used." So people who weren't in the entire process could see that their feedback was being turned into input that was influencing the process. And so this was a really interesting dynamic to share as much as you could, again, in sort of the confidentiality of the job search process, but in a way that really lays the groundwork for people understanding how this new member of their team was coming into the organization. And the last update, we shared... I think it was 26 pages of everything that went into the interview process.
Tim Cynova:
We had a very highly structured process that included, as Katrina said, same prompts for every candidate, asked by the same people in the same order so we could make sure that every candidate was being evaluated in the same way. And that's what we shared. We said, "Here's everything. Here's all of the scripts, all the email templates. Here's all the interview questions and scenarios." And I don't know if anyone made it through all 26 pages, but if you wanted to, it's all there. And now, going back to that prior point, now it can be a resource that you can draw upon for future searches. You might not do 26 pages, but you might say, "That's an interesting scenario. Why don't we modify it for the development role? Why don't we modify it for..." whatever it might be.
Katrina Donald:
One of the really surprising pieces for me around providing those updates... Because they were quite dense. There was a lot there. We often wondered, "Is this the level of information that people are interested in, and are we going a bit... Taking this too far?" But when we did our debrief and I asked the search committee what kind of questions they were fielding about the process throughout the process from their colleagues in their areas, what I heard back was that it was because of the updates and the checking in that we were doing, the time we were taking to do that, and the way that Opera Philadelphia was just sharing those sort of directly from Tim and I to the organization. Because of those updates, there was really limited skepticism about our process, which I think is something that there's always lots of questions around search processes, often because the doors are so closed.
Katrina Donald:
I really loved hearing the feedback that even if people didn't read it, they felt like they could see the rigor that was being applied in this process. And they also were asked about their own felt sense of experiencing, of participating as a selection committee member. And so this looks to be like a transparent and inclusive process. Did it actually feel like that? And so that was a really cool point of alignment for us too. And then I think the other comment that I heard on that question was this idea of being really curious about overall learning, and receptive to, "Could you bring this question back to the committee?" Or, "Maybe you could ask Katrina and Tim something like this." And so those were sort of the loops that I was noticing that really reinforces the opportunity in those check-ins.
Jamie Gamble:
It's a great example of the link between developmental evaluation and this process, but that is really a very DE, developmental evaluation, thing that you were bringing in. And not only informing the search process, but helping the organization to change and be ready for change, and to really come out of the hire ready to move forward. One of the things I'm hearing a lot is the shifting of burden that happens through your process. You're sort of reducing it at the front end, perhaps asking more of the organization throughout, and then increasing it as it is appropriate to do so, and so implied in that is that there's a lot of power shifts at play. You're doing this as two White people in a process that is very much about race and change. How did you navigate that, and what did you learn about that?
Tim Cynova:
This was a question that Katrina and I sat with for a really long time when we were invited to be a part of this process, invited to submit a proposal for the process. We had to wrestle with it and say, "What's our role? What would we bring to the process? How can you be two White people helping lead a search process in an anti-racist way?" And I think that's what, for me personally, that I sat with. If we were to be hired, how would I do this? Who would I work with? Who would I consult? How would I want the process to work? Whose voices are included in the process, directly and indirectly? How are my biases and my lived and learned experience problematic and hindering what might be a process that creates something new and something better? What's the responsibility, and how can I use my own power and privilege in a way that helps create something new?
Katrina Donald:
I think what I'd add is that one of the things that we hear, in this conversation, in this moment, is that the tendency is for White people to rely on our systemically and historically marginalized communities to do the emotional labor of EDI work. And so part of this, for me, is using very consciously the power that I have in my social location to surface these conversations, and to facilitate conversations that can attempt at the very outset to set conditions that we know are in service of equitable practice. And so we're not waiting for the harm to be done to learn from that situation. We're actually reducing it at the start.
Katrina Donald:
And I think that the work that Tim has been doing and the work that I've been doing very personally and with organizations allows us a lens that if this is where we can have impact in changing systems to make them more equitable, anti-oppressive and anti-racist to move forward, then that is, to me, a really good use of my energy and my skillset and my knowledge and experience in this conversation. It's always going to be a messy question, and it really is one that I have with my collaborators, or that Tim and I have before we say yes to work, how our work contributes in a way that is really bespoke to the work that we're about to take on. And so it's not saying that this is in general the reason why, but maybe in this particular case, we feel like we can have an impact in this system, or we feel like we can guide this particular process.
Jamie Gamble:
So what did you learn? You've come through this Opera Philadelphia process. They've hired someone. They're now in the organization. Cast your gaze back and tell me what worked and what didn't work.
Tim Cynova:
I think this is something that we're getting clarity. There are things in the moment where we're like, "That didn't work," or, "That was really cool." And there are things I think that as more of the dust settles, we have clarity on. There were some really cool things that the search committee did during interview processes, this question of: How do you shift power differentials that often exist in interview processes, where it's usually one person with a lot of power who's either in the room or asking the questions, and then... Especially candidates, you just have to go along for the ride. Maybe you get 5 minutes or 10 minutes at the end of an interview to ask questions really quickly, but really sitting with how can you shift this during every part of the process.
Tim Cynova:
And that included emailing candidates some of the questions in advance. Or, "This is what the interview's going to be like. Here's how it's going to start. Here's who's going to be in it," so it's not I pop into a Zoom call and there are seven people who I don't know, and I'm not sure what the first question is going to be. So there's some of that. There's leaning on the work of liberating structures to say, "How can we use something like a listening circle in this process? What might that look like so it's the same for every single person?" So maybe a usual listening circle, you wouldn't be scripted if you did the circle five times, but we needed to make sure it was authentic for what people had to say, but that it was the same thing more or less every single time so you knew candidates were responding to that. So there was some of that as we were, again, building the plane and... While we're flying this thing, we're like, "Wow, we put a lot of stuff into that one interview."
Tim Cynova:
At the same time, the search committee recognized, "We're asking candidates to do a lot of stuff pre-work for this interview, and we want to compensate them for their time." So they decided to pay everyone who is going into the second round a $250 honorarium, recognizing that it more or less was probably going to take people two hours at a roughly $125 an hour consulting fee. So every one of the candidates going into that knew, "This is going to be a lot of work, and we want to recognize that this is labor you're putting into it, and we want to provide you with this." And doing it in a way too that isn't, "Now you need to submit an invoice, and maybe 18 weeks later you'll get paid," but it was really around, "How can we get people as fast as we can this money?" And it was using things like PayPal.
Tim Cynova:
So as soon as the interview's done, or the interviews are done for that day, all the payments went out, so people had the money right afterwards. And again, I think that showed the committee's respect and care for the candidates who were going through their process, and not wanting to add more burden to them to be like, "I know this is kind of awkward, but did you send the check yet?" But there are some things that coming through, we're like, "Yeah, we put a lot into that interview process. We got a lot of good data from it, but maybe we should retool this in a different way.
Jamie Gamble:
Can you give me an example? What would be different if you were to retool it?
Tim Cynova:
When we started with the committee, I think Katrina and I probably had three pages of just questions. We thought about, "What kind of questions could we ask the candidates," and there probably were, I don't know, 75 questions there. And at the end of the day, we probably spent maybe four hours or so with every candidate, when you think about the check-ins that we had. And they're probably like five prompts per interview, so you only had like 15 things. So I think most of the interview questions and scenarios yielded us data, but they're also new. I usually think if one answers that question the same way, it's a bad question, or it's a bad prompt, like there's a giant back door that everyone just goes through. It's like, "How do you prioritize and track projects?" And people are like, "I'm a list person."
Tim Cynova:
And if everyone says they're a list person, you didn't really get any good data to help you make your decisions. So when things are like, "Eh, it seems too similar," or maybe it's like, "We didn't craft that in the right way," those would be things where I would want to go back and say, "Maybe this was cool, maybe this was a fun thing that did have some interesting conversation around, but if you get five questions in an interview, was this the highest priority one to ask?" So I think there's some things like that. And also, that yields to: What's the burden on the search committee? Taking a look at it, it ebbs and it flows, where there's a lot up front, and then it sort of dies down when you're sourcing, and then it comes into search.
Tim Cynova:
Some of the things were marathon days, because we're trying to keep all the candidates either on the same day or within a day or two so that you didn't have this drift between rating and waiting candidates. So there's some of that. I would want to not have five serious interviews on one day. People need a break.
Katrina Donald:
I would say there was probably... If I had five insights to offer about what we learned, they would be number one, that taking the time to talk about some kind of committee agreement for grounding the way that that committee would be in relationship over the course of this search, and to really talk about power dynamics and where there might be implications for the way that the system is used to operating, and the way that would feel different in this. And so to sort of have those conversations and take the time upfront with the committee. We did in some way, but I think next time I might do it a little bit differently to actually really bring in some of the learning that we've had to set the container for that search committee to engage. I think another thing that worked really well was the way that we communicated with the candidates.
Katrina Donald:
So there was an element of candidate care that we were really trying to stretch and explore in this process, and part of that was prep in advance, so letting them that, "This interview doesn't really require any immediate prep. Our focus is going to be on X, Y, Z here." If there was prep in advance that was required, that they would be compensated at a fair rate for that work. But then there were also moments where we just checked in and touched base with them, where we just said, "How are you doing in this process? And any questions for us? Is there anything we're doing?" When we started to interview, what we really tried to focus on was that we were weighing the candidates' opportunity relative to the role, and not rating the candidates between themselves. So we were really trying to say, "What is this candidate bringing to this opportunity? And then what is this candidate bringing to this opportunity? And then what is this candidate bringing to the opportunity?"
Katrina Donald:
So that was our first lens. We wanted to center the opportunity and the organization in that piece, and the candidates really responded to that. So when we got to the point where we had to regretfully say we weren't continuing with them, many people had enough knowledge about what we were trying to do and how we were trying to go about it that that regret made sense in the way that they were understanding the opportunity, and so there was a relationship. And in a few cases, actually, a relationship that's been ongoing with candidates who weren't successful in this because of their experience. I think another one to mention, the liberating structures. And I think the focus here was on how we held the space in the interviews. So we used technology in a different way. There were times when candidates watched something in prep for their interview. There were times when the candidates experienced a different way of asking questions in the interview.
Katrina Donald:
So whether we were going in the round and having people's perspectives shared in that version of a circle process, whether we were having them be sort of a fly on the wall in a conversation between two people, and then bringing their questions and curiosities into that. So when we were looking at liberating structures, we were saying, "Which of those things need to happen in the space of the interview, and what can be preloaded, or what can people reflect on coming into the conversations? So how are we best using that time when we're all together?" And then I think the last thing, the fifth thing I would offer, is just that we had a really strong commitment to sticking to time for candidates. We wanted them to be able to know and anticipate that there would be time to ask questions to the committee.
Katrina Donald:
And so even if the questions that we were asking were running long, we had a timekeeper in that interview who would ensure that our commitment to having space for candidate questions was being honored, and so we would shift and move in the moment to make sure that we have that space.
Jamie Gamble:
The readiness of the organization is key. What advice would you have to either organizations that are trying to self-assess, "Should we engage in a process like this," or someone who's going to engage them in a search, like you and Katrina did, to assess the readiness of their prospective client?
Tim Cynova:
There are different levels of doing this. I think every organization can say, "How do we have structured interviews? Let's create structured interviews." You might not do anything related to your values, but just structured interviews. As a start from, "Let's just see how the conversation goes," and, "Oh, you like bourbon? So do I." And you're like, "All right, that doesn't tell me if you're a good CFO or not." So starting with things like structured interviews, and then really into what are the knowledge, skills, and abilities that a candidate has to have to be successful in this role. And how can you tie those to questions and scenarios that you ask throughout the interview? And keep asking yourself, what data do I get from this question, this scenario that supports whether or not this candidate has these things? And again, we've talked about interview questions and scenarios.
Tim Cynova:
For the most part, we ask scenarios, not these "tell me about a time" questions that are biased against people who have that experience, but like, "Here's something real. How would you deal with this? How would you handle this? What would do you do with it?" And it really allowed candidates to show up in a way that said, "Okay, yes, let's talk about pay transparency and the challenges that an organization has if they don't have that, and they need to evolve it," or, "Let's talk about open enrollment if you're going into that, and how you balance copays with level of coverage." And so you can do all of those things without sort of saying, "Let's reinvent everything." But just say, "Let's have a structured interview process, so everyone goes through the process in exactly the same way." They're greeted by the same person at the office that every other person is, if you're doing in-person interviews. Or if one person is on video, every person is on video.
Tim Cynova:
We see this a lot nowadays. Maybe three people are located in the city where this organization is located, but maybe two people aren't. And so you do in-person with some people, and video for other. No, if one person has to do it, everyone does it. And this showed up in the interview process in a really interesting way, where we had about a 30-minute conversation with the search committee around: If we get thank-you notes from candidates, but we don't get them from every candidate in this round, do you want us to forward them along to you? Because this starts to set up... Well, now you're getting something from someone, but not from other. And then do you start to take in this thank-you letter as data that sways away from other decisions that you're making? And so there's a way for organizations to do that without saying, "Let's retool everything," and I think for the most part, that's where you should start.
Tim Cynova:
You should start experimenting with this, and then every time you do it, you add to it. You iterate. You say, "All right, those questions didn't work," or, "Let's don't have Tim ask this, let's have Katrina do it," or, "Let's figure out how to include this," or, "We learned from previous new employees that this would've been helpful to include," and put that back in. And I think this is sort of the concurrent validity, where you're pulling feedback from something that's happening at the same time into a process, where if you just ended a process, ask the person as soon as they get in to the organization, "What was it like? What would you have changed?" And then capture that data, and then include that back. So I think that's a way to really improve your process without too much work, but then there's this really deeper workaround.
Tim Cynova:
If you're going to really work to center values of equity, inclusion, anti-racism, anti-oppression, that takes some really deep thinking and work to sit with. What does it mean to do that in the process? And that's why I said start exercising as a team around how do we reimagine the search process before you sort of jump right into the deep end and say, "Now, let's do everything at the same time," because you want some small wins here. You want to exercise those muscles before sort of retooling everything, especially if you're trying to do it internally, where you're pulled between, "I'm on the search committee. As soon as I get out of the search committee, I need to go into those HR meetings, and then I need to go in operations," and then all these resource things.
Tim Cynova:
And so I think for Katrina and I, it was really interesting and helpful to be external, but really close with the committee in a way that... Sincerely, really miss getting to work with the five people on that search committee. We built the bond and rapport, and Katrina mentioned saying goodbye to candidates. You got to know candidates really well throughout the process. And when you had to say, "Only one person gets the job, so everyone else you have to say goodbye to..." So how do you hold that candidate care, and do it in a way that you stay connected with them, and really want the best for them? And so I think those are some things that I'm holding from this process, and then thinking, "All right, next time, how do you do that thing? Maybe how do you do it faster, or differently?" Because every organization is different. Everyone's different, as we know. So what does that look like then, in a different scenario?
Jamie Gamble:
So what's now? You've done this once. Would you do it again? Where does it all go from here?
Katrina Donald:
Yes, I would definitely do this again. I think we saw some encouraging signals through this one process that tells us that a process like this has potential in other scenarios. And so I think I'm really curious about how this work actually works in organizations in different sectors who do different work and different structures, or organizations of different sizes.
Tim Cynova:
I mean, I would totally do this again, especially getting to work with Katrina, because there's all these ideas that we have. We both have been involved in hiring for years, and this was just a different take on our own knowledge, skills, and abilities around reimagining the process. And so I think part of it's like, "Yeah, let's do this again. Let's try out those things. Let's see what works the same and what work works differently." And going back to that earlier point we made, what's the learning? What's available for the 99% of organizations who aren't going to use this extensive process? And so we're experimenting around hiring process consultation, a much lighter process that can work in parallel with an organization's own processes and people in a way that helps you work through your job posting, or who's on the committee. How do you set things up?
Tim Cynova:
Essentially takes this entire process that probably was like four months, then says, "What if it's boiled down to five touch points that are an hour to two over the course of the two months that you're leading this search? What might that look like, and how might organizations be able to benefit from this other learning and external input and feedback to then inform their searches, and then take this learning forward by themselves, and not have to work with an external firm?" So there's both that large-scale quote unquote "full-service executive search". There's this lighter-weight hiring process consultation.
Tim Cynova:
And then in April, what's really cool is we're gathering a group of people together for an inclusive hiring course that we're going to be teaching over four Wednesdays in April that will go through this, what's the learning, and then work with people who are either just about ready to start hiring or in their process to use these real-life case studies to say, "What's working for you?" Let's come together as a group to share these learnings, because there are so many organizations that are doing really interesting work, one of them being our colleagues in Toronto at the organization Generator, who we have a previous Work. Shouldn't. Suck. podcast with, who we really benefited from having the opportunity to talk with them, to say, "This seems a little challenging. Was this also challenging for you? And what did you do?" And so that community learning is one of the really exciting things that we're looking forward to in this exploration of how can we continue to iterate on a hiring process that's value-centered.
Katrina Donald:
That course will allow us to learn a little bit more about that and iterate our own process, but also see where this process goes when it's being held by different hands, and how that increases the likelihood that other hiring processes will look different in the future.
Jamie Gamble:
So lots of paths forward. If you are resonating with these ideas, you can do a full-on executive search with outside support, or you can build your own muscle step by step through the course, or through this community that's developing and these ideas that you are sharing. Maybe just to wrap up, would you each just share one moment? Take me to a moment in this process where you said, "Yes, this is really cool. Something really special is happening here." Let's end with just that insight into the possibility of what you've shared with us.
Katrina Donald:
One moment I would say that really resonated with me in a really exciting way was actually in the debrief. The debrief that we had with the selection committee at Opera Philadelphia, just hearing some of their stories about how this felt different, and how people felt heard and felt like they were doing important groundwork for the organization, and what that possibility is really, really spoke to me and encouraged me. I think the fact that all five of our search committee members said that they would definitely reengage in a process like this was so meaningful to me because we had put a lot of care into it. And so that care felt like it was picked up and felt back. And so that was a really, really special conversation for me.
Tim Cynova:
I'd second that too, that was really meaningful. Oftentimes we do a lot of work on stuff and we just hope for the best. This is going to do the thing we hope. To go through this with this search committee, and also to hear back from the candidates that we stay in touch with about the process, about it felt different. It was fun. It was challenging, but it was fun. It was incredibly meaningful. And I think that's why it was one of the top five most fun things that I've ever been a part of, because people showed up and they were game to do stuff that was different. And at the end they said, "Yeah, it didn't all go the way we thought, but it feels like this is something we can do now and we can be proud of it.
Tim Cynova:
And I think that, really a big thanks goes to those five members on the search committee who are a part of this with us. They were really doing it. We helped guide the conversations, but it was them coming up with, "How might we do this?" And saying, "This feels a little awkward and stressful and uncertain, but if all of you also are game for this, I'm here too. And so I think Kathryn and Darren and David and Michael and Veronica, a huge thank you to them for allowing us to be a part of that process.
Jamie Gamble:
Katrina and Tim, thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation. Tim, you just said feels like we're onto something. And we are here. There's this path forward that you've taken some first steps, and hopefully this podcast helps others carry the journey forward and bring work into their own practice, and their own organizations, and their own searches. And Tim, thanks for trusting me with the mic on your podcast. It was a real pleasure to speak with you.
Tim Cynova:
Jamie, thanks so much for taking over the microphone for this. And Katrina, as always, it's brilliant to get to work with you, and always learning something new through this. Thanks for saying yes to that initial inquiry.
Katrina Donald:
It's hard to say no to. And this podcast has been so fun because it really is collision of my work worlds. So thank you Jamie for being our host today, and Tim for giving us the opportunity and the platform to talk about it.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes, so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up, or a five stars, or phone or friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep5: Conversation with Ron Carucci (EP.57)
In episode five of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Ron Carucci, an author and Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Navalent, a firm that works with CEOs and executives who are pursuing transformational change for their organizations and industries.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
March 22, 2022
In episode five of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Ron Carucci, an author and Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Navalent, a firm that works with CEOs and executives who are pursuing transformational change for their organizations and industries.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films. Read “Reflections From a Token Black Friend,” mentioned in this episode.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
RON CARUCCI is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. He has a thirty-year track record helping executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization and leadership. From start-ups to Fortune 10’s, non-profits to heads-of-state, turn-arounds to new markets and strategies, overhauling leadership and culture to re-designing for growth. He has helped organizations articulate strategies that lead to accelerated growth, and design organizations that can execute those strategies. He has worked in more than 25 countries on 4 continents. He is the author of 9 books, including the Amazon #1 Rising to Power and the recently released To Be Honest, Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice & Purpose. He is a popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, where Navalent’s work on leadership was named one of 2016’s management ideas that mattered most. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes, and a two-time TEDx speaker. His work’s been featured in Fortune, CEO Magazine, Inc., BusinessInsider, MSNBC, Business Week, Inc., Fast Company, Smart Business, and thought leaders.
The Whole Me
He lives in the New York City area with his wife. On weekends, you’ll find him on his bike, on the tennis court, on his skis, at the movies, or cheering for the Seattle Seahawks. His greatest joy is seeing leader’s thrive by having the impact on the lives of those they lead. Helping leaders find their voice, and use it to serve their organization’s greater good is what gets him up every morning. In his office, Ron has a collection of antique door knobs, door knockers and skeleton keys. Every day, they remind him that life is about finding and pursuing the open doors in front of you, and making sure those doors open for others. In the morning, one of his favorite routines is picking the coffee mug in the conference room from among his collection. Each mug hails from a difference experience and person in his life, and helps him begin his day remembering to be grateful for all those in his life who’ve been part of his story.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Ron Carucci:
In the '50s when racial segregation was normal, when mistreating people of color and treating them as less than was normal, it was painful, but it's all we knew. Today, when you have so much more evidence of equity, so much more evidence of people making equity an issue, of organizations committed to it, and you seeing tangible evidence of representation in leadership and representation in high personal ranks, it actually makes the gap more painful. Because when our psyches have to live in the cognitive dissidents of two different worlds of it's much more fair and it's still unfair, it's more painful. And so we actually feel the gap more intensely, even though technically the gap is smaller than it was 40 years ago, it feels actually bigger. Because the way our brains process that is that, well, if we made this progress, why didn't we make this progress?
Ron Carucci:
If we ended this, why is this still a problem? Those are great questions, and sometimes they don't make sense. And so the unfortunate conclusion many white people draw is, well, this is as good as it can get, and can't they just be thankful for how far we come. Rather than saying, no, it just means this last part of the gap that isn't closed yet is much harder to close because they're rooted in such systemic entrenched systems that keep those parts of the gap in place. And it wasn't that the rest of it was low hanging fruit, it came at a huge cost, but the cost to close the gap we've closed so far came on the backs of people. The rest of it has to come on the backs of white people.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck, a podcast about, well that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10 part mini series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast, where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I introduced the series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic not by white guys can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways.
Tim Cynova:
Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work, others say they approach it more through a justice lens, others inclusion and belonging, still others equity and impact. Through these conversations we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss, what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging. And since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with. On today's conversation I'm joined by Ron Carucci, co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, a firm that works with CEOs and executives who are pursuing transformational change for their organizations and industries. You could read more about Ron and his bio that's included in the episode description. So in the interest of time, let's get going. Ron, welcome to the podcast.
Ron Carucci:
Hey Tim, how are you. So great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Tim Cynova:
Thanks for being here. This is awesome. Before we really get into things, how do you typically introduce yourself in the work that you do?
Ron Carucci:
I typically tell people that my firm and I get the privilege of accompanying senior leaders of organizations on the messy journey of transformation. That as they're about to embark on expeditions to bring their organizations to a different place or out of a bad place, that our job is to be the shepherd. Our job is to sort of architect the journey and architect the path that gets them where they want to go and doesn't get them stuck somewhere, or gets them there in a way that doesn't have regression a year later because it actually sticks.
Tim Cynova:
So the past two years have thrown a lot of curve balls and we're living with a lot of uncertainty. So what does that look like with the work that you're doing?
Ron Carucci:
We've been very fortunate, Tim, that so much of what, and I would've never guessed this, so much of how we do our work translated to virtual world. I would've never imagined some of the really intense organization design work that we do, being able to be done virtually, but we've done just fine. I think leaders have asked for more help. I think some of the uncertainties they're facing, some of their own limitations, which I don't think COVID caused, I think COVID just revealed those limitations and how they engage people in all kinds of complex messes that they never had to, at least never believe they had to worry about before. And suddenly they're in their people's living rooms and bedrooms, and suddenly their personal life is very relevant. And there's all kinds of mushier and blur your boundaries now, and leaders don't always know how to navigate those well. So they may ask them for a lot more help.
Tim Cynova:
Well, and with the topic we're talking about today, I think this is one of the really exciting things about this uncertainty in which we're living. Because it causes people not to go on cruise control role, but you have to really be intentional about how are you building these policies, how are you building the practices while centering anti-racism or racism, oppression, justice, equity. As you think about your own personal journey and professional work, what are the lenses you use? Because to describe the work anti-racism, anti oppression, justice, how do you typically frame it for yourself?
Ron Carucci:
Well, I think a fairness is typically a word that gets overused a lot, but in my new book I talk a lot about justice. And organizational injustice isn't new, they're everywhere, hiding in plain sight. And certainly injustice is aimed at people of certain identities, the people of color or gender, but there are level playing fields everywhere. And the reality is, if you're willing to allow unlevel playing fields to exist, it means it exists for everybody. So you either have to decide you want a fair and just and purposeful organization, or you don't. You can't have it fair for some people or fair for when it's convenient for you to make it fair, and then leave it to be unfair out of your sight.
Ron Carucci:
Whenever I have to introduce the concept, for example, a privilege, rather than go down the identity privilege issues that people get all kinds of weird about, I'll simply say, if you're in a tech company, if I talk to your engineers, are they going to say they're privileged, if I talk to everybody else, are they going to say, the engineers are privileged. If I'm in a high growth company, what are people going to say about your sales people? If I'm in a brand company, what are people going to say about your marketers? You have privileged roles. It's perfectly fine to acknowledge that not all work is created equal and not all work is to the same value, but all humans are. And when the value of your work suddenly becomes equated to the value of you as a human, you've unleveled the playing field. And what we now know is that when you remove dignity and justice from how people contribute, you set the stage for really bad behavior. So it's not a far cry then to say, well, if you have roles that are privileged, I bet there are certain people that are privileged.
Ron Carucci:
What do I make of the fact that your entire executive team is mostly white men with one token woman in, leading HR? What do I make of representations? And you can count all your diversity inclusion stats you want, about all your, what goals are and what you're trying to accomplish and tell me how difficult to find the candidates are, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if it were that important to you, you'd figure out a way. Last year when you struggled to get that product launched and all of a sudden you were four weeks from a deadline that you weren't going to make, suddenly mysteriously the entire organization came out in full force and was able to solve the problem. What if you treated your representation issue the same way, because you believed it was just as urgent that you'd figure it out.
Tim Cynova:
How are those statements typically met by, what I imagine are a lot of white leaders?
Ron Carucci:
No, but I don't get a lot of pushback. Sometimes I'll get the very passive aggressive, well, you don't really understand what it's like for us, kind of thing. They want to play the victim card. But nobody would ever say that to me directly because they know where it would go. But I think most people believe it. I think there are leaders who generally do care. I think the problem is too many executives believe that their good intentions count. That somehow because I intend for it to be fair, I don't intend for it to be discriminatory or biased, I don't intend for people of underrepresented identities have work stuck for them. If work shouldn't suck, it shouldn't suck for anyone. You can't just say, work shouldn't suck for most people. Because now you're by default declaring that you don't really care if it sucks, as long as it doesn't suck for you.
Tim Cynova:
I think that's one of the things in my own personal journey that I realized around good intentions and around doing good by being good. And then as I started to learn as a white guy, and in particularly as a white male leader with power and privilege, that a lot of those good intentions, a lot of those things that I thought were like, this is a great policy for the organization, this is a great office innovation, who wouldn't like this, and realize, oh, right, there's a lot of people who are being left out by this. And then sitting with that discomfort of like something that I really believed in, really feel like was great, but then realizing that wasn't necessarily the case. And in particular reading Tema Okun, Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, and looking through those lenses that are our work really brings it home and has really uncomfortable to sit with those and realize, this thing that we build that we're really proud of is not all that great for everyone.
Ron Carucci:
Well, and we were so convinced was rooted in meritocracy. We were so convinced was rooted in fairness and created the opportunity for everybody, and never bothered to interrogate those assumptions in ways that didn't account for our white male perspective on it.
Tim Cynova:
Speaking of white male perspectives and the characteristics of white supremacy culture, you mentioned your new book. The new book is To be Honest, Lead With the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose. Full disclosure here, as you know, I'm reading it, I've not finished it. So no spoilers here. But as I was starting to read it, as I was starting to reflect on my own writing in some of the things as I teach leadership and team building, sometimes I'm like, whoa, that didn't age well, or, oh, if you apply that lens to this, if you apply an anti-racism, anti-oppression lens to this really great case study, it all falls apart. I'm curious as you are writing this, really spending a lot of time, years of research on this, as you looked at the case studies you're using and the examples that were in the book and reflected on these characteristics of white supremacy culture that are often baked into the DNA of the organizations that were in, that were studying, how did that influence how you went about writing the book, understanding your findings and the direction of it all?
Ron Carucci:
Couple of ways. One, I was very intentional about centering black voices in the book. I made sure that I had those perspectives built into my work. Because the book is a book of heroes, there's plenty of villain stories out there for integrity breaches or ethical lapses. We don't need to hear any more Toronto stories or Wells Fargo stories or Volkswagen stories. I wanted to write about the leaders and organizations who were modeling things we could emulate, who we'd all be proud to have as bosses. That's what this book is about. And I chose people who I knew were committed to equity and fairness. I chose case studies of companies who I knew were doing good things for communities in which they served, were multi-stakeholder focused, were committed to racial and gender and all versions of equity that we need to think about. So I was pretty intentional about that. When it comes to centering black voices, I give myself a B, I could have done a little better.
Ron Carucci:
But there are quite a few well positioned experienced black experts and leaders in the book whose stories were remarkable, whose voices were very shaping of my thinking and of the book. We also did a TV series. During all the interviews I was very initial about recording them so that we could later turn them into a series. And in that TV series, it's called Moments of Truth, and you can find it on Roku or you can find it at the website. All 15 episodes are at the website, tobehonest.net. I did multiple segments. So I didn't want them to be all about me. So I intentionally chose two co-hosts, one of whom is a black man. And I had another guy in my firm do a segment called Everyday Justice. And so they each did segments on justice and finding your voice to a variety of guests. So I intentionally broaden the lens, which we're seeing this beyond just my own.
Tim Cynova:
Is this different than how you approached previous projects, previous books?
Ron Carucci:
Dramatically, dramatically. I mean, sadly, I don't know that I would have given it a thought or have known to give. I mean, I was sort of numb. I would say Rising to Power, the last book, which was seven years ago, we were very focused on a specific type of marginalization, a typical type of leadership failure, very centered on the research, we done that. That was the 10 year mark of our data on leaders who are failing on the way up. And there were some factors we disclosed around marginalization or identity privilege in there, but it was because the research found them, it wasn't because we went looking for them. In this case I was particularly intentional about wanting to make sure that the lens of justice shown on organizations in ways that whatever you believe a microaggression is or whatever you believe your own good intentions are, I wanted you to recognize that you could be better.
Ron Carucci:
I think that was probably the biggest finding, one of the biggest findings of the research is that honesty isn't a character trait, it's not some moral set of principles. It's a muscle, it's a capability you're either good at or need to be better at. And for the people who say to me, well, I'm kind of really for the most part already an honest person, so I guess the book isn't for me. To whom I say then, it's mostly for you. The person who believes they've arrived and who thinks they're honest enough is the person most likely to be impacted by what I learned. And that was me. I thought, well, I'm a good guy, I'm honest, I'm straightforward. But sure, do I have moments that I'm not my best version of myself? But of course I said, white guy can dismiss those and have them hide in some vague place because my halo outshine them. But the reality is that, we all have moments where we're not our best versions of ourselves, and someone has to pay a price for that. And we often don't calculate those consequences very well.
Tim Cynova:
What did that look like in practice, in reality, for those moments for you?
Ron Carucci:
In some moments where I embellish information or withhold information I think someone doesn't need to hear right now. Or when I'm a little bit short with the barista at Starbucks or when my white male entitlement comes screaming out in a drive-through lane or sitting in traffic or in an airport where I'm wanting to get in line. I think now more than ever I am just so conscious of privilege, mine. I know guilt and shame is not a helpful response to that. And finding ways to be generous and share those privileges is really what I need to do.
Ron Carucci:
Which I'm not always that good at, I have to sort of work a lot harder to figure out what those moments are. But I have become much more attuned to others, to how, whenever I'm in the presence of a person of color, how do I respond? How do I participate? How do I center them? How do I respect, show them respect? I have clients who are people of color. What do I do to make sure they know my goal is and intention is to be an ally, even if I fall short on that? It's just so much more of a consciousness now. Not that I've arrived at any place or that I'm good at any of it, but I'm just aware, when I wasn't before.
Tim Cynova:
This a generational work and the lifetime. And the arrival is just to learn that we've got so much more to go.
Ron Carucci:
Yeah.
Tim Cynova:
Like you make some progress and you just realize, oh, it's so much more. What has this personal journey been like for you, to get to a place where there's two white guys on a podcast talking about race and racism and what this means to us in the workplace?
Ron Carucci:
Gosh, it's been so rewarding, Tim. When I first discovered White Men for Racial Justice through the research for To Be Honest, people that I interviewed in the book introduced me to Jay. To that point in my life I felt alone and isolated. I felt like, am I the only crazy white guy that thinks this is really important? My convictions about justice, especially racial justice, are born deeply from my own values and my own faith. That justice is a deeply important expression of those values and that faith. Brian Stevenson's work has been foundational in my life. When people say, who's your hero, he's who I say. Most people in the white community who would share those convictions, did it from a charitable point of view.
Ron Carucci:
So that pity kind of thing, not some deep conviction that we are all part of the problem. And so it was always this very awkward discomfort for me, but I felt very isolated and that I didn't have a whole lot of places to talk about it. So when I found white men for racial justice, it was like a homecoming for me. This place of, oh my gosh, I'm not by myself and I'm not crazy. What I'm seeing really is a problem and we can do things about it. I was fairly confident that there was a lot. The pile of what I don't know what I don't know was large, I didn't really know how large it was, but I discovered that it was far more accepted than I even thought.
Ron Carucci:
But the education has been profoundly transformational for me. It has given me tremendous hope. I know that there's lots of places in the world we still suck at this, but my gosh, it has given me tremendous hope that if 60 white guys come together every week and talk about this and are eager to find ways to incorporate it in their own life and can even with our own circle make the world a little bit better, a little bit more brighter, a little more hopeful for the people of color we interact with, that's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that there isn't extensive distances to still travel, but every inch of ground we gain is worth it.
Tim Cynova:
Let's talk a little bit about how this shows up in the organization, in Navalent? As the leader, as a white guide, doing this work personally, you also work at an organization, leading an organization. What does that work look like?
Ron Carucci:
So there're three managing partners, three of us own Navalent, and all of us come from a deeply values and principled center place in life. So the pro bono clients we take on, like for example, Black Lives Matter, one of the Boston Chapter is a pro bono client of ours, which has been incredibly formative for me. From that have come a couple of executive coaching pro bono projects. All of our pro bono clients and places we both give our profit to as well as our time to are places of people who are marginalized, who have been cast aside.
Ron Carucci:
And whether it's racial issues or victims have you been trafficking. As a firm there's a deep sense of values and principles around giving back in the firm. So it's not weird at all, we all support each other in those endeavors, whether they're collective as a group or individual. Every year we give a good chunk of our profits away to charity. So this year it went to Equal Justice Initiative. As a community it's sort of part of who we are, it isn't weird at all. People I think are happy and supportive of each of our individual and our collective efforts to do our small part in making those marginalized worlds a little bit better for those people.
Tim Cynova:
I had a session that I led maybe about a year ago or so, I'm talking about the work that we were doing at Fractionalist, the organization that Neb was a co-CEO of the anti-racism work that we were doing. And at the end of this session, it was for mainly a bunch of white guys. And someone said, that was all great, but like could you like talk about some tangible things that you've done?
Tim Cynova:
And I got to them and I'm like, oh God, I think the whole thing was tangible examples. Then it's like, where have I failed this? Where have I failed this group? As I came back to the office and I was talking with my colleague, Courtney Harge, who's now the CEO of the organization, wonderful organization called OF/BY/FOR ALL, and I was like sort of recounting this to her. And she said, I think people confuse tangible with impactful and impactful with visible. And she went on to say, adding pronouns to an email is tangible, ending gender discrimination is impactful and increasing gender diversity at an organization is visible. As you think about the work, I mean, approach at Navalent and sort of these different distinctions, what resonates with you?
Ron Carucci:
Well, I think though it's easy for us to sort of put those in a hierarchy. As though, you should aspire to go from tangible to impactful to visible. And I think that would be a dangerous thing to do. You have opportunities to do any number of those things in your path every day. The question I would ask people is, when those opportunities exist? As an example, I may, if I see a microaggression happening, and this happened to me in a bank. I was walking into the bank and ahead of me was a black man, and I noticed the woman at the, little greeter lady at the door was saying, hi, so do you have an account with us? And he said, yeah, I do. And she showed him to the front of the line. I went in and she said, hi and I could see his shoulder slump. And I could feel my neck getting red.
Ron Carucci:
And I was, oh, okay, if I say something to her now it's not going to go well. So I'll just give it a minute. I walked up to that black guy and I said, I'm so sorry that happened to you. And I think he was surprised that I noticed, and he didn't say, he just nodded his head. And afterwards I went to the manager and I said, hey, I'm sure she meant well and she probably doesn't even realize she did it, but here's what happened, and I'd like for you to say something to her. It'll be better coming from you than it will for me. Now, you could say that was a tangible thing, but for that black guy that could have been impactful. And for that bank could have been visible, if in fact she stopped doing that. How do you measure that, right? I think a lot of white people especially struggle with the notion of, because their comparative lens is so bizarre, right.
Ron Carucci:
So we want to compare things today to the '50s and think, well, look at all the pro... I mean, how could you say we haven't made any progress? We're not hosing people. That's all true. If you're comparative, and certainly if you're comparative lenses to 250 years ago when Lincoln signed the document, my gosh, it's night and day. Well actually, it's not. Sure, you can point to very tangible, impactful and visible progress, societally, in the last 50 years, in the last 200 years. That's interesting. That does not discount... What people don't understand Tim is that, in the evolution of long tales of change, we're actually at a more painful moment than we were in the '50s.
Ron Carucci:
In the '50s when racial of segregation was normal, when mistreating people of color and treating them as less than was normal, it was painful, but it's all we knew. Today, when you have so much more evidence of equity, so much more evidence of people making equity an issue, of organizations committed to it, and you seeing tangible evidence of representation in leadership and representation in high professional ranks, it actually makes the gap more painful. Because when our psyches have to live in the cognitive dissidents of two different worlds of, it's much more fair and it's still unfair, it's more painful. And so we actually feel the gap more intensely, even though technically the gap is smaller than it was 40 years ago, it feels actually bigger.
Ron Carucci:
Because the way our brains process that is that, well, if we made this progress, why didn't we make this progress? If we ended this, why is this still a problem? Those are great questions, and sometimes they don't make sense. And so the unfortunate conclusion many white people draw is, well, this is as good as it can get, and can't they just be thankful for how far we come. Rather than saying, no, it just means this last part of the gap that hasn't closed yet is much harder to close because they're rooted in such systemic entrenched systems that keep those parts of the gap in place. And it wasn't that the rest of it was low hanging fruit, it came at a huge cost, but the cost to close the gap we closed so far came on the backs of black people. The rest of it has to come on the backs of white people.
Tim Cynova:
What does that look like? What's the next piece of that?
Ron Carucci:
Where you stand depends on where you sit. I think in the workplace we've got to translate all of our George Floyd era statements of I won't tolerate, I won't talk about, whatever into, okay, then will you go out and root out privilege in your organization, wherever it exists? Appointing a chief equity officer is interesting, will you make that part of your strategy? When you see microaggressions happen right in front of you, will you be brave enough to make sure somebody says something or that you open your mouth? When you look at your recruiting policies, your promotion policies, when you look at how... I mean, look in governance, how do you allocate resources? Who's invited to what meetings, who's voices are heard? How do you treat when you're on the hunt for, I want a diverse candidate in the job.
Ron Carucci:
Do you want a diverse candidate because it checks the box off and you get to be a clip art? Or is it because you believe that they are the most qualified candidate, but when you hold up their underrepresented demographic to others it's actually like an extra light on my resume. It's like an extra advanced degree because they bring that point of view and you realize it will make the work much richer, which is it? Because if it's check a box off, you're going to set it up to fail. It's a constant continuing to dig deeper into ourselves, Tim. Yes, in our systems. My gosh, if in our generation we could at least see some significant dent in the prison industrial complex. For me, at the core of one of the biggest systemic evidence of racism is for-profit prisons, whose quotas are filled by policemen who are probably in some way benefiting from the gain of that, because some of that money goes back to local municipalities and law enforcements.
Ron Carucci:
We've entrenched this system of making sure we fill cells with black people. And so if we could just end that some way. And I don't know that it would require deprofitizing the prisons, but it sort of requires dissenting them being full. That to me would be like a massive cut of like an ephemeral artery of racism. Those are the places I think we have to lean in harder. I think in the workplace, we have the luxury of a credible amount of resources, a mandate, so from society, and a workforce that's becoming less and less tolerant of the crap that they've seen of inequity, of injustice. And today we're standing them up with their feet. I would think that the business world, who can also be an incredible beginner of change in other parts society, would be the place where we have the greatest frontier on which to continue to produce change. Because we have the resources and the brains and the expectations to do it. And we're now creating these jobs called chief equity officers, of people who presumably we're hiring to help us do it.
Tim Cynova:
I'm writing a piece, and I don't know if it's going to be published by the time these episodes go live. The question is, does your organization need a chief whiteness officer? As a starting place before you can even get to chief diversity officers, chief equity officers. But like what predominantly white organizations are often trying to do is, they need to wrestle with their whiteness before they can even get to the next steps. The questions are like, what is it that we're trying to "solve for in hiring"? And getting to your point really of uncovering, like what are you actually trying to do here and is that in aligned with just window dressing or is it like deeply held beliefs? Because one is going to be much more successful than the other.
Ron Carucci:
Well, I think until we get off the representation as an end, versus a means to an end, it won't change. And I think the cruel thing is, can we set people of color up to fail when they check a box for us to make us look like the clip art, and it by no means actually represents diverse thinking. I did a work for a client a couple years ago, so women's care products. And I mean, talk about the clip art, her executive team, female CEO, she had black, Asian, LGBTQ, Hispanic. I mean, she had like one everybody. And this company pride themselves in a diversity metrics and a diversity commitment.
Ron Carucci:
And I was in their executive team meeting for a day and a half, and by the three quarters of the way through the first day I said, I'm sorry to tell you some bad news here, but there's not an ounce of diversity in this room. And of course they were all defensive and in shock. And I said, let me just rewind my tape here. And here are four moments in your conversation where you stumbled upon conflict, stumbled upon places where there were some real tensions. And here's what you said, let's take this offline. I don't think we have enough data for that, let's just defer this to the next meeting. That's probably not a conversation for today. And each of the four times you punted.
Ron Carucci:
What that's telling me is that heterogeneous was really your goal, not homogeneity. So what is it? Is it, you want to look diverse or you want to actually be diverse? But right now you are all one thing. And what I would ask each of you to think about is, what did you edit? In the moments where that tension came up, what did you wish you could say that you didn't? Because when it comes out of your mouth and you freely exchange, beneath this cosmetic illusion of diversity, what you really think, that's when you know you're diverse. The question you have to really ask yourself is, is it actually there? Or in fact, did you create a groupthink filter here so strong that you really are all the same.
Tim Cynova:
Earlier in my career I was a part of a 10-person leadership team, all white. And it actually, this anecdote led to training as a mediator because I was reading about trace of high performing teams, and healthy conflict is one of those things that's on the classic list. And I was realizing that our team was not getting better at having healthy conflict, engaging in it or getting better to, I think the team you're describing it, knowing what would lead to conflict and avoiding it. This was as we were starting to talk about racism and oppression and privilege in the workplace and realize that that team and that configuration without the ability to have those conversations wouldn't be successful in a commitment that was going to, at least for the white people, include a lot of really uncomfortable conversations. When you talk to teams like that, what's your advice, what's your step that you would engage them in?
Ron Carucci:
The first thing I do, typically I put up on the whiteboard a bunch of language. And I say, here's the two things I think... One of the reasons I think we're not making progress, Tim, in the racial or the systemic racism part of the composition is we lack two really fundamental ingredients, skill and language. And so we have all these shortcut words, white fragility, white supremacy, Marxism, revolutionary, radicalization. And so they're all trigger words and they all are a shortcut for so much that they shut conversations down. So I tell people, we're going to have a conversation about racial equity right now, here 20 words you cannot use. So you have to do one form division and own your discourse and explain what you actually mean.
Ron Carucci:
And it really disarms the room because now I don't have to worry about being triggered by a word that I don't even understand in the first place anyway. Most people have no idea what those words mean, but they've made meaning of them or they've had some part of their echo chamber on social media make meaning of it for them. And so when people have to sort of explain what they feel, what they see, what they think, why they think it, it suddenly changes the conversation. Because now it's personalized, it's vulnerable and I have to bumble through it. I have to sort of stumble my way through something that I don't really have a lot of understanding of. I know I have a point of view, I have convictions, I have thoughts.
Ron Carucci:
I can't go quote my own source in the room, because now it becomes me versus you and your source versus my source. So we just have these dueling binaries that just become a type of war. And nobody has to hear anybody, nobody has to listen. So I find when I take all that language off the table and I slow the conversation down and I make it one question at a time, where have you seen evidence of things being unfair or people of color being mistreated in ways you felt were unjust? When people ask you why you aren't someone who disparages others for their skin color or looks down for them, what evidence in your own life do you typically produce? I have friends who are, I grew up in a way that.
Ron Carucci:
You have evidence and you believe that's all evidence of your innocence in this. I find that if you sort of put some guardrails around the conversation and you take away some of the limitations of it, you try to speak a foreign language here and you're barely conversational, you're not fluent. So we're going to bumble through this together. You level the playing field a little bit. I also find that interestingly enough, white people are better behaved when they're with people of color, than when they're on their own. It's because they're more cautious. And even when they slip up and say stupid things, they're a little bit more owning of those. So I find the egg shelliness of that a little bit of an asset.
Ron Carucci:
Because when they were just with white people, it becomes a venting session. They don't appreciate. I had to work for everything I own. All that white privilege stuff that they don't even realize that they're saying. We've got to get better language, we've just got to get better language, and stop looking for shortcuts. We don't have to have a two word phrase that describes a concept that's 400 years old. With all due respect to Ms. DiAngelo for her book, the word white fragility hasn't helped us help white people see their own sensitivities to the conversation. White supremacy unfortunately has not helped us see the privilege we have. We think, oh, I don't wear a white pointy hat, I don't burn crosses. What does this have to do with me? So we just have these concepts and language that are just not helping us. It doesn't make them untrue and make them irrelevant, it just makes them unhelpful.
Tim Cynova:
That's a really great exercise and really great frame. And I think that slowing down, it feels like kind of like what's happening with the pandemic through which we're living. It's causing us to have to think about things differently that we wouldn't have given that much thought. It's like, you just go into a conference room, you do that thing and then everyone leaves. Or you like do that thing but like, okay, we can't do that thing, we have to try something else. And it's giving us that opportunity to say like, all right, how can we co-create that in a way that works for everyone? I guess it's one of the positives of a global pandemic as it relates to this work. But I really love that exercise. Have you included all of the words publicly someplace and people have that or you would recommend people create that for themselves?
Ron Carucci:
I start with all the obvious ones. Sometimes it's even, find a disservice to start the conversation with, what are all the words and language that have derailed you in this conversation? And then you add the ones and they leave out. But usually it's about 30 or 35 terms or phrases or words. And it's amazing how hard it actually is, how much it reveals, we really don't know what we're talking about here. My gosh, I had a debate with somebody very close to me in my life about critical race theory. And I said, well, have you read it? Have you read the original papers? Well, no, but so and so said. Okay. Well, just so you know, it doesn't say that. You can figure out what you want.
Ron Carucci:
And oh, by the way, just in case you wondered, there's not any evidence of any school in the United States, K through 12, trying to teach that material. It's a college level content. So just in case you're wondering why they're protesting outside the middle school. There's no evidence of critical race theory there. If you ever like actually go read what the theory actually says and come back and talk about it, I'd welcome the chance to do that. It doesn't say, let's make all white children feel bad for being white, in case you wondering.
Tim Cynova:
Well, that's further difficult too when it turns into an acronym, CRT or DEI or JEDI. Rather than like, these are four different things, justice, equity, diversity. Those are four really different things and we do a disservice by lumping them into an acronym and it's using that.
Ron Carucci:
I think the neuroscience gives us great clues into that, into why that is, Tim. Our brains are miserly organs. They are very lazy. They will process as minimal amount of information as they have to. What our brains do is they look for shortcuts. The neuro pathways of our frontal lobe that process information are looking for ways to rinse and repeat. It's the classic explanation of why you can drive to work and not remember how you got there. Our brains create templates, they create frames to say, this is how you explain that. And so every time you see it, you explain it the same way, whether it's true or not. Our brains look for shortcuts. That's the definition of bias. A bias is a template. It's nothing more or than ability for your brain to explain something so that you don't have to actually work hard to think it through. Oh, black person in a hoodie, dangerous, walk the way, right?
Ron Carucci:
So your [inaudible 00:36:49] kicks in, off you go. And those biases often exist at unconscious levels, thus the word unconscious bias, but anything more than compass headings. It's like your brain's GPS. And if you don't take the time to interrogate those directions that your brain is giving you to say, what assumptions is this based in? Where did I learn this? Because it's all learned. It don't come installed in your brain, you install them. They're all aftermarket add-ons. If you don't interrogate people will think, I'm not biased. No. Okay. I can prove that you are. One of my favorite exercises to do people is, it comes from classic behavioral science research in the '60s. But you basically, so have people write down the names of five people that they work very closely with, two or three that they're really, really close with and one or two that they're less close with. And take those five names and put them in every combination of groups of three you can.
Ron Carucci:
So if you give them A, B, C, D, it's a ABC, CDE, ABE, every combination of trio. And then you have, right to have all the names out. And you say, go through every trio and circle the names in that trio the two people who are most alike, just do it. And they go through and circle all the names. And then I say, great. Now I want you to go back through that list and decode, what criteria are you using to determine a likeness? And then you watch the color drain from their face as they realize, oh my gosh. And sometimes it's really overt. Like it was gender or it was race. For me the first time I did it it was intellectual snobbery. I picked the people who I thought that was the smartest. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm an intellectual snob.
Ron Carucci:
All of a sudden people realize, oh my gosh, I have yardsticks that I walk around with and I hold them up all the time. And I measure and I collect data, and I collect data that proves my yardstick is right. That's the definition of bias. So now when you tell me you're not biased, you can just say, except for that, except for this exercise right here. Where you clearly are walking around screening everybody around you through those same lenses. And you have to decide one day, are those lenses A, sufficient, B, accurate or C, based on assumptions that may or may not be helpful to the relationships you're trying to build with them.
Tim Cynova:
Ron, I could chat with you for much longer, but our time is coming to an end. As we prepare to lay on the plane, where do you want to land it?
Ron Carucci:
I hope that your listeners, especially for my white male peers out there, I hope as you think about 2022 and the year ahead, if you could just be a little bit curious. I'm not asking you to become a convicted anti-racist zealot. In fact, black people have asked us not to do that. But I'm asking you to just be a little bit curious. What is it that I've learned in my life that I may not be aware that I learned. Just listen to one episode of the Seeing White podcast. Just read one article. There's a fabulous article, if you find it on LinkedIn, it was undoing for me, I sobbed. It's called Reflections From a Token Black Friend. And it's probably a 12 minute read, but it changed me. Just get curious.
Ron Carucci:
I'm not asking you to change your life. I'm not asking you to sort of throw away white friends and go replace them with black friends. I'm simply saying, could you just wonder a little bit about what life is like for people who aren't white? Have you ever walked into a store, what would it be like if all the faces on all the products were black? When's the last time you were in a room of people where you really were the only one like you? Maybe it was in a foreign country where everybody spoke a different language, or you were in a room, if you're a guy, you were in a room full of a lot of women, or you're a guy you walked into the women's room by accident.
Ron Carucci:
Think about the moment you were someplace you were really other. And I want you to bring to mind that temporal ilities discomfort you felt. And of course, I'm sure you quickly corrected and got out of there. But I want you to imagine what it would be like to live your life with that feeling 24/7. What would you do now? Now, you would say, well, I'm a white guy, I wouldn't climb the walls, I'd fix it. And good for you for having the privilege to be able to do that. But imagine if the very reason you can't fix it is because of your skin color, because of your gender, because of the difference that you bear, that you or I have never had to bear. Just wonder about that. If you could just do that, that'd be a huge win.
Tim Cynova:
Ron, thank you for that invitation. Thank you for the time today. Thank you for all your vulnerability and for your insights. It's been, briefly, awesome and a joy to get to spend this time with you.
Ron Carucci:
Glad I got you, Tim. Thanks for doing these episodes and thanks for helping get the word out there. I really appreciate your work on the world.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or a five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep4: Conversation with Jay Coen Gilbert (EP.56)
In episode four of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Jay Coen Gilbert, CEO of Imperative21 and Co-Founder of B Lab.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
March 19, 2022
In episode four of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Jay Coen Gilbert, CEO of Imperative21 and Co-Founder of B Lab.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
Jay Coen Gilbert is CEO of Imperative 21, a business-led network that believes the imperative of the 21st century is to RESET our economic system so that its purpose is to create shared well being on a healthy planet. Network steward organizations include B Lab, The B Team, Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), Common Future, Conscious Capitalism, Inc., Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), JUST Capital, and Participant. Imperative 21 builds on Jay’s experience as cofounder of B Lab, the nonprofit behind the global B Corporation movement. Along with his B Lab cofounders, Jay is the recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the McNulty Prize at the Aspen Institute, where he is a Henry Crown Fellow. Since 2016, Jay has been called into antiracism work, prioritizing his own learning and UNlearning journey while co-convening multiracial and white caucus spaces and formats including WMRJ (White Men for Racial Justice) and AWARE (Allies Whites Against Racism for Equity), both designed to help white people come together in peer-led communities of learning and practice to develop racial literacy, stamina, and communication skills, and a commitment to dismantle racism in ourselves, our organizations, our communities, and our country. Prior to co-founding B Lab (and despite having no game), Jay co-founded and sold AND1, a $250M basketball footwear, apparel, and entertainment company. He has also worked for McKinsey & Co, as well as organizations in the public and nonprofit sectors. Jay grew up in New York City and while he graduated from Stanford University with a degree in East Asian Studies, his most rewarding educational experience was co-teaching a class for the last ten years about the role of business in society at Westtown School, a 200-year-old Quaker institution. Between AND1 and B Lab, Jay enjoyed a sabbatical in Australia, New Zealand, and Monteverde, Costa Rica with his yogini wife Randi and two children, Dex and Ria, now 23 and 21. Jay and Randi live in Berwyn, PA.
B Lab is transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet. A leader in economic systems change, our global network creates standards, policies, and tools for business, and we certify companies—known as B Corps—who are leading the way. To date, our community includes more than 4,000 B Corps in 70 countries and 150 industries, 10,000 benefit corporations, and 100,000 companies who manage their impact with the B Impact Assessment and the SDG Action Manager. Learn more at bcorporation.net. B Lab has been recognized in almost every major business publication (including Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal), and its work was named by Fast Company as one of “20 Moments That Mattered Over the Last 20 Years.”
Imperative 21 is a business-led network that believes the imperative of the 21st century is to RESET our economic system so that its purpose is to create shared wellbeing on a healthy planet. In addition to equipping business leaders to fulfill this purpose, Imperative 21 shapes the narrative about the role of business in society, and supports policy changes that accelerate the transition to stakeholder capitalism. Network stewards include: B Lab (certifier of B Corporations), The B Team, Chief Executive for Corporate Purpose (CECP), Common Future, Conscious Capitalism, Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), JUST Capital, and Participant. They collectively represent more than 134,000 businesses across 80 countries and 150 industries, more than 25 million employees, $11 trillion in revenues, and $21 trillion in assets under management, and reach hundreds of millions of people every day who are increasingly eager to vote with their purchases, investments, and employment decisions.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And our habit mostly, as white people is saying, "I don't really have to deal with this. It's not my issue. I care about it, but I've got other priorities." That's our natural state. Mostly because we can, or we think we can, ignore these things. And so, I think what we're experiencing right now is expected and it's what we have to work against, which is why I value so much the community that you and I are a part of, White Men for Racial Justice, because we've built a community of practice together that is of mutual support and accountability. And it calls us constantly in, like a little tap on the shoulder to say, "Hey, are you still here? Are you still in the work?" And just that little bit of implicit reminder, I think, is really helpful for folks like me, who otherwise would have lots of other things to be focused on and lots of other problems to solve and things to build and cetera. And because this isn't necessarily part of my everyday experience, if I choose to not see it as such, it's easy for me just to leave it on the side as a nice to have, among many other things that are nice to have, as opposed to an imperative.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. A podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast, where my co-host, Lauren Ruffin, and I, introduce the series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens. Others, inclusion and belonging. Still others, equity and impact. Through these conversations will explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing.
Tim Cynova:
We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging, and since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with. On today's conversation I'm joined by Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab and CEO of Imperative 21. Imperative 21 is a network of more than 70,000 businesses working to reset our economic system so that its purpose is to create shared wellbeing on a healthy planet. It's a network focused on the opportunity we currently have to reimagine and redesign what comes next. You can find Jay's bio linked in the description for this episode. So, in the interest of time, let's get going. Jay, welcome to the podcast.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Thanks so much, Tim. It's great to be here with you.
Tim Cynova:
Jay, you wear several hats. How do you typically introduce yourself these days, and the work that you do?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
My name's Jay Coen Gilbert. And I'm a dad and a husband and I live outside of Philadelphia on Lenape land. In the context of this, I guess I do two things. I work with the businesses trying to make a positive impact on the world and shift their economic systems so it centers on people, not profits. And in my work in racial justice, the way I would describe it is I'm working with other white men to be our best selves.
Tim Cynova:
Do you specifically define the work around race? Because there's a lot of different lenses. People talk about anti-racism, anti-oppression, diversity, inclusion, justice, equity. Is race the lens that you use and have you always thought of it that way?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Yeah, it's a good question. When I think about the work, I do think of it as racial justice work. I'm persuaded by things like Angela Glover Blackwell's seminal article called The Curb Cut Effect, that if you focus on race, if you address racial inequities, you are going to address all inequities because in a system, in a culture, in a society like ours, that has been largely built on racial hierarchy, if you can see it and then dismantle that racial hierarchy, you're inevitably going to get into all the other inequity issues around gender, and ability, and sexual orientation, and gender identity. All of those things are going to come out of it if you deal thoughtfully around racial inequity. And so, I think of it as, if I'm supporting racial justice, if I'm advancing racial justice, then I'm advancing justice for all.
Tim Cynova:
Have you always thought through this lens?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
No, I haven't. I'd say that for most of my life, my lens was through a lens of class. And through a lens around what can I do to alleviate, minimize, eradicate poverty. As someone that was born in a pretty privileged background, I think that was pretty present for me. And I recognized that I was born with things that others weren't, and therefore opportunities that others weren't. And that felt like a class issue for most of my life. And it wasn't until doing this work with more intention and focus over the last five years that I came to see that race and class are inextricably linked, certainly in the US context, but pretty much around the world. And that it's probably not super helpful to start parsing chicken and egg, but I'm really persuaded by analyses like you'd read in Heather McGhee's, The Sum of Us, and her mentor, Ian Haney Lopez, from Berkeley, who's done some really pioneering work in what's now called the race class narrative, and the work of The Groundwater Institute, that have really helped me see things more clearly that the economic inequities that we see can be traced back to, and are inseparable from, the racial inequities that we've created.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And so for me, it hasn't been consistent. The initial insight wasn't like, "Oh, of course it's about race." It felt like the issue was about resources. And it was only in looking more closely that I realized that the lack of resources, the investments in certain areas, the disinvestments in other areas, were being driven by race and racial hierarchy. And whether that was conscious or unconscious is a whole separate conversation, but those are the systems that we've got. And those are the systems that we're operating in. And that's the culture that we've got and the culture that we're swimming in. And so for me, at least where I am now, and I view this as a continuing process of revelation, and so there may be other things I'm not aware of and then I'll change my mind in the future, but at least right now, it feels fairly clear and compelling that the water we're swimming in is racism. And until we look at that clearly and can dismantle that in ourselves, we're not going to have a shot at dismantling that in our systems and culture.
Tim Cynova:
That phrase, 'process of revelation', I think is so powerful and that it's ever evolving. And we're looking back at like, "Oh God," the things we didn't know that we didn't know, and then we learn it and realize how harmful and problematic and how maybe we're trying to do good, but realized that was not exactly the impact that our actions were having. When we first met several years ago, we were sharing our stories about how did we end up here? And you shared a piece that you've not published, sort of revelations of having started AND1 and then B Lab. And how the things you thought were great, turned out to not be so much in hindsight. Can you unpack a little bit of that and really what that process was like for you, to reflect back on those experiences?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
I think you're referring to a piece I wrote that I called The Myth of the Self-Made Millionaire, the privilege of AND1. And the process of writing that was really helpful for me. Writing, for me, is a form of mindfulness, like going for a walk in the woods or sitting by a body of water. I find that the act of writing forces me to answer questions, which then lead to new questions, which then lead to deeper reflection. And I'm sort of hopping across a stream, stepping stone by stepping stone. And I can't just leap across the stream. I have to take it one step at a time and find my footing. And the writing process for me gives me that ability to put one foot in front of the other and then see a little bit more clearly go around a corner and see something I didn't expect. And then examine that, which raises some new questions.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And I'd say that I did what a lot of people I know do, which is the first time I heard the word privilege, I had a very internal eye roll and I was like, "Oh man, what are we talking about now? New word, new term. You're putting that on me. And I busted my butt to build this company. I worked 25 hours a day, days a week, 400 days a year to build what I built, how dare you take that away from me?" And sure, I grew up with some money, but at the end of the day, I built this. There's an incredible podcast. It's literally called, How I Built This. And the entire framing of that, as I wrote this piece, as I sort of explored what was really going on when we created AND1 with my friends.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Well, first of all, is that the entire construct of "I" was a lie, because we did it with others. Not just the partners, but then all the other people that made that possible. And then as I explored that, and what gave us the ability to take those risks, what enabled us to be seen as credible, as 25 year old of guys with no experience in the industry, what gave us access to the $50,000 from friends and family, how we happened to have money in the bank from bar mitzvahs or summer jobs or whatever it might have been, how we didn't have student debt coming out of undergrad or graduate school. There were so many instances where the way in front of us was cleared, or at least more smooth than it would've been for others who, when I thought about it, were competing with us, with the same idea at the same time, but who came from less advantage backgrounds, and so who therefore, would've had to overcome more obstacles to be in the same position we were.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And the more I looked at it, the more steps I took across that little stream, the more I realized, "Oh, there was some advantage here. There was some advantage here. There was some advantage there." And that doesn't negate the hard work or the smarts or the partnership and just the luck of being in the right place at the right time with a good idea. We had all those things. But we also had some advantages. And it felt like, as I was doing this work, it only became meaningful to me if I could move past the intellectualization of this as a concept and talk about it as a reality for me in my life. And the single most defining thing in my professional life was a 13 year run to create a company called AND1 that had huge success, culturally and financially, that's given me every other opportunity I've ever had. And every bit of credibility that allows me to do things in my life now that are all based upon that success.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And that success was absolutely based upon a good idea and hard work and great partners and all the things and great execution. And it was also based upon, or built on, some advantages that I didn't see at all when I was going through that for 13 years, or even in the 5 or 10 years directly after that, as I was sort of beating my chest and swelling, puffing up my chest with how I built this, or how we built this, and realized that there was already a lot of the construction underway before we got there. And we may have done some really important things, but it wasn't all because of our brilliance or sweat.
Tim Cynova:
Really powerful. And also, something that I imagine a lot of the white guys listening to this are, or have been, wrestling with themselves, how to hold multiple things at the same time and what to do with them.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Yeah. My partner at B Lab who was also an an early investor in AND1, because he went to work for a finance company, so he had five grand that he could invest in our little startup. His name is Andrew [Casoy 00:12:49]. And he has taught me so much over the years, in so many contexts. And there was one B Corp [inaudible 00:12:56] retreat down in New Orleans several years ago. And we were in the thick of our equity journey as an organization and as a community. And by in the thick of it, I'm being generous. We were at the early stages, sort of awkward groping for what this was. He was on stage in a panel conversation and different people sharing their perspectives on this. And he shared something that I know he learned from others who were further along on the journey than him.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And he shared very humbly, as he always does, his grappling with this notion of privilege. And he was the first person from whom I heard this notion that there are two kinds of privilege, or advantage, if people prefer that word. There's earned privilege or earned advantage, and there's unearned privilege or unearned advantage. I'm sure that wasn't an original thought of his, but he shared that insight that had been revealed to him. And he shared with a room full of 500 business leaders, overwhelmingly white, and heavily male, that as a successful white male in finance and the rest, he recognized that there was some privilege that he earned through his hard work and good ideas and execution, but that there was also this privilege that he didn't earn, but he basically inherited. And what I found so powerful about that, Tim, was that by acknowledging both, I could see shoulders dropping and jaws unclenching, and breath exhaling, as people didn't feel like they were being lectured to like, "Everything you've done is just a result of your privilege and you didn't do any of this. It was given."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And it was like, "No, no, no, you did do plenty of that. And congratulations and good on you. And there's also space to acknowledge that you might not have done all of it or you might have had a helping hand or a head start or a wind at your back, or at least no obstacles in front of you." That was revelatory for me. And I've seen that be revelatory for other white people, and particularly other white men who are used to being celebrated in rewarded for all the things that we do alone, because it didn't deny their work. It just made space for their work to sit alongside other things that they had nothing to do with, but benefited from. That to me is an example of a really skillful calling in to this work and finding sort of bridge language or metaphors or stories that you can tell that say, "This is hard and it's complex and it's not binary. You will benefit from really thinking about what elements of your success are result of your earned privilege or earned advantage, and what elements of success are a result of this unearned advantage or unearned privilege."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And I found that not only revelatory, but I found that liberatory. I found that it relieved some stress and it enabled me to see things more clearly, and then own it and own both of them. And I could be proud of the work we've done and the success we've had that was because of our own insights. And I could also be humble enough to recognize that there's lots of things that I've enjoyed almost as a bequest. I no longer want to look at those as a birthright, but as a bequest, and then something I have to use wisely.
Tim Cynova:
I've been thinking recently about what I feel are three stages that I've happened for the past two years or so. Two years ago where you'd be explaining to someone about how an organization should be thinking about racism and oppression and how it impacts their policies and practices. And oftentimes I was met with, "Well, why? Why should we be doing that?" And then after George Floyd's murder, it became, "How?" People were starting to learn a little bit more about racism and oppression. And it became, "How?" I feel like we're starting to enter what is a third phase, which is a rejection of that as it shows up in organizations and as things like critical race theory become politicized. And organizations are saying, "No, we're not going to talk about politics in the workplace. This is an apolitical space."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Right.
Tim Cynova:
I feel like the window is closing on organizations being able to do the work or not being called in a way that's hopeful and liberatory. It's people are feeling like, "If I'm a white person, I should feel ashamed or bad about this."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Right.
Tim Cynova:
How are you seeing it right now?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
It's a good question. And I see it as pretty muddy. Like most people, I like a nice clean analysis, but I don't think it's that clean. I thought where you were going was we're going from the why, to the how, and to the what, and, "What are the things I should do?" And et cetera. And I think what you're describing is, in education spaces, they talk about spiral learning. And that nothing's linear, right? We move forward. We circle back. We move forward. We circle back. It's like those old phone cords. And sometimes, if you remember them, if you're old enough to remember that there were these things you took off the wall and had cords, not only were they spiral, but they would twist on themselves and then get all twisted. And I feel like this work is kind of like that.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
If I try to create a nice clean narrative, it may feel good, but it hides lots of complexity. I absolutely see what you're seeing and feel what you're feeling with a rising sort of resistance or the normal sort of forces of inertia that sort of settle this energy. And without something that's... An object in motion stays in motion. An object at rest stays in rest. It needs forces to act upon it. And so as those forces that were pushing us to confront these things lessen, the momentum decreases and the natural friction that exists, because we don't exist in outer space, there's natural friction that exists, slows us down. And that friction can be distraction. It could be coming out of COVID. It could be a myriad things around that are going on in our work and our lives and just the normal cycle of an urgent moment that turns into a chronic moment.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And it's harder to stay focused for the long term. No different than working out or leading a healthy lifestyle. Habits are hard to form and easy to break. Or sorry, both hard to form and hard to break. And our habit is mostly, as white people, saying, "I don't really have to deal with this. It's not my issue. And I care about it, but I've got other priorities." That's our natural state. Mostly because we can, or we think we can, ignore these things. And so I think what we're experiencing right now is expected. And it's what we have to work against, which is why I value so much the community that you and I are a part of, "White Men for Racial Justice." Because we've built a community of practice together, that is of mutual support and accountability. And it calls us constantly in like a little tap on the shoulder to say, "Hey, are you still here? Are you still in the work?"
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And just that little bit of implicit reminder, I think, is really helpful for folks like me, who otherwise would have lots of other things to be focused on and lots of other problems to solve and things to build and et cetera. And because this isn't necessarily part of my everyday experience, if I choose used to not see it as such, it's easy for me just to leave it on the side as a nice to have, among many other things that are nice to have, as opposed to an imperative for me. And so, I do see some of that rising resistance, but I think if you study our history, you'd say that that's also pretty typical, whether it's Reconstruction or the Civil Rights Movement or school integration. Affirmative action.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
You could name any signs of progress, and they were always met with resistance, because every force is met by an equal and opposite force. And that's why this requires sustained engagement. And particularly sustained engagement from those who currently hold the most power. And that is white people, and that's largely white men. And we have been the ones who have been most conspicuously absent from these conversations and from these movements throughout our history. We have to look very closely to find white men who stepped into this work over the last several hundred years. And there are plenty of them, but we mostly don't know their names and we don't know what they did. And we don't know the joy that they experienced in doing it or the sacrifices that they made in doing it. And I think that's, at least for me, where I'm finding the most power and energy to continue the work, is to be in an intentional relationship with other white men that know that they've been on the sidelines more than they wanted to be.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And they're willing to acknowledge that among others, and to say, "I can do better. I'm so grateful that you think I can do better. And you're going to help me do better." And I think that's the key. And it's one person at a time and one community at a time doing that. And that's the only thing that's going to overcome the forces of inertia and the forces of resistance. And honestly, I think the forces of inertia are much stronger than the forces of resistance. I think if you think about this as a bell curve of white engagement or white male engagement on these issues, I think the big part of the bell curve is not resistance. I think the big part of the bell curve is some form of indifference or unmotivation or lack of prioritization. That's as, "I say I care, but of my actions say, 'I don't care enough to make this my top priority or one of my top three priorities.'"
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And we love to say in a business context that it's only your top three priorities that ever get done. So, you can have a long list of things you want to do, but I just need to boil down to three max for our focus for the next year, if using your influence, your power, your workplace to advance racial justice isn't one of your top three priorities for your business, it's not going to get done. For most of us, it hasn't been. And my hope is that we can create a community of practice and power that will help people make their own decision to prioritize this, because it's only when we prioritize it that we'll spend the time. And when we spend the time we bring resources, networks, and others along with us, and that's using our advantage to really good effect.
Tim Cynova:
You're a co-founder of B Lab doing that work. You're CEO of Imperative 21. And then last June 2020, you started something else, with a group of guys. You've talked about White Men for Racial Justice. What was the impetus for that? As you mentioned, I'm a part of this group. I value it a great deal, to be in a community with a group of guys. It's not a work setting, so you don't have those power dynamics of, "I'm a CEO. I'm in here with people who report to me." Maybe start with why start this group, and then we can dive into what's a part of it, and maybe talk about the curriculum development, which is really rigorous.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
The first thing to start with is that we didn't, we didn't set out to start a group. And so, the first great part of the plan is that we didn't have a plan, which was very atypical for a bunch of white dudes who typically like to show up and fix things and solve things. We showed up on a Tuesday night, June 2nd, after an email went out on a Sunday, to about, I don't maybe, maybe about 20 people that just said, "We're all witnessing what's going on right now," which was the beginning of the mass of protests all around the city... not the city. All around the US, and beginning are all around the world, as a result of the murder of George Floyd. We were all feeling gut-wrenched and confused or angry or frustrated. We were all feeling a lot of feeling a lot of feels.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And as typical white dudes, we mostly didn't know what to do with those feelings. And so, we just called people and said, "If you're a white man grappling with any number of different feelings," and we listed 8 or 10 different feelings that were all contradictory and swirling, "We're feeling some of those things too. And we'd love to just gather in community and have a conversation about what we're feeling and what we might do, how we might channel those feelings." And it wasn't anything more than that. We said, "There's no agenda. And we're showing up as humans, not as representatives of our organizations," to your point, about trying to reduce certain barriers and expectations and power dynamics. And 100 guys showed up. And my phone was blowing up with like, "I can't get in what happened is..."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And it was just because I didn't realize that we had a Zoom that had 100-person limit. And we just held space for conversation. Fortunately, I had been in both some white racial affinity space and multiracial racial justice spaces over the last five years. And a few of the white men who were in that with me, were effectively some of the co-conveners and holders of that space that first night. It was really powerful. We just sort of let it emerge. And we didn't try to force a game plan or KPIs or an outcome onto the situation. We just said, "Wait, well, it seems like there's energy here to meet again. And so we're going to meet in two weeks from today, same time. And between now and then, everybody should listen to the Seeing White Podcast Series." 14 episode podcast series that we had already done in other settings and knew would form a really nice foundational, shared experience and set of knowledge for all of us on that, that we could then process together.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
We said, "Hey, 14 episodes in 14 days. You've done lots of harder stuff in your life. Let's do it." We basically met every other week. We just kept on committing to keep meeting and unpacking what we were experiencing. Not just the facts and new history and new data that was present in that podcast series. But also, more importantly, how we were feeling about it. Because, again, we often don't give ourselves the opportunity to express our feelings. And we tend to over intellectualize and analyze things, and not really just sit with it and say, "Well, how does that make you feel when you heard about the history of how race was baked into our legal system? And how this inequity led to that? How does that make you feel? Particularly as a white man, how does that make you feel?"
Jay Coen Gilbert:
We realized that we had stumbled onto a bit of a format that would lead to deeper understanding and deeper reflection, which then led to deeper commitment and community among this widening group of white men. And we then basically started meeting every other week. Eventually people said, "Hey, I want to go deeper on this stuff." And so we created these peer support circles, which enabled smaller groups of four to six guys who we get together consistently with the same people and really create a braver space for vulnerability, because it's often more challenging to share some personal of stuff in a group of 40, 60 guys on a Zoom screen. But if you're with the same group of guys, week after week or month after month, maybe you'll be willing to slowly open your heart a little bit more and share things that you might not have shared.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And that's exactly what's happened. Since the beginning, Tim, we've been in relationship with paid Black equity advisors to make sure that a bunch of white guys don't go run off thinking they know something or developing a great plan, but with all the blind spots that we have. And the combination of leveraging existing content... We're not creating content... leveraging existing, vetted credible content, having a format that enables us to go deeper in conversation, and community and reflection about that content, so we internalize it and personalize it, don't just intellectualize it and externalize it, and doing all that while holding ourselves accountable to the advice and guides and wisdom of people who are living in this every day. That combination has been pretty powerful. And now the group's been meeting together pretty much weekly for the last 18 months. And it's like going to the gym or going to church or going to your yoga class or whatever it is, or going to your choir practice.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
You get better with practice. When you're left to do it on your own, you don't do it as often or as well. But when you do it with others, you can push each other, and lovingly challenge each other to show up or to dig deeper or to translate any of that learning into actual action in your spheres of influence, whether that's your family, your community, your church, your workplace, whatever it might be. And that's been sort of the special sauce. And we've just basically been doing that for the last 18 months. We've learned a ton. We've gone down a lot of false trails. We've tried a bunch of things that didn't work. And we're evolving. And we're evolving to meet the revealed needs and desires of that community of white men, and now inviting other white men into relationship and into community with us and welcoming everybody.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
There are no teachers here. We're all learners. And we all have something to contribute. We're all white men, but that's the only thing that we share, other than a commitment to a vision of an America where everybody is seen and valued and respected and can live to their full potential, and a purpose to dismantle racism and white supremacy in ourselves, our community, our culture. We share that for a trajectory, but there's an incredible amount of diversity among those white men. Age, occupation, where they live, what they do, what they believe about these issues, where they are in their own journey, their political beliefs, their religious affiliations, their gender. It's a very diverse group among homogenous group of white men. And that's actually what it makes it really powerful, because we don't all see things the same way. And that helps us see things in 360 degrees.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
If you can create a container in which people feel comfortable sharing, "You know what? I'm not so sure about that. That's still sitting with me a little uneasily. I don't really know what to do with what's coming up for me right now." And people are willing to share that, which when someone vocalized it, there's probably eight other guys who are thinking the same thing. And so it creates a space for a mutual and accelerated learning and supported action that I've never experienced anything else that I've done. And I've been in lots of spaces of collective action, like the B Corp community with shared values and et cetera, but never anything where people were willing to be as vulnerable as they have been in this community. And that has been inspiring for me. And it's really been inspiring for our equity advisors and a lot of the other Black and brown and Indigenous leaders who have partnered with us help guide our journey, is when they see 40 or 50 white guys on the Zoom really grappling with this stuff and they see how open and vulnerable they're being with where they are on their journey and what they're still grappling with.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
They share with us that inspires them and it gives them hope, because those who've got the most power, who've been most missing from the struggle, are beginning to show up. And that's hopeful. And that doesn't make us saviors. It doesn't make us the only game in town. It doesn't make us leading anything. It just means we're starting to show up. And that in of itself is a big deal, because we've been absent for so long.
Tim Cynova:
One of the things I really value about the community is there's no template for this journey. Not like, "All right, I know how to make a budget now. I know what a marketing plan looks like." In particular, as we're thinking about in the workplace, both the personal work that we need to do as white guys, but then my lens is typically through the workplace. How do we do this in the workplace? There's no plan for this. And it's often bespoke. And what I really appreciate about the community is, I mean, for the past couple of months, every month has been a different theme, like education, or looking through Indigenous perspectives, or voting. And I remarked in our peer support group, "This one doesn't feel like my ministry. I feel better for understanding it, but I feel like this is not where I can engage. But this one actually, there's something that resonates with." And so, I really appreciate that. And I think that's one of the things as white guys who are in this journey, it's like, we're learning different things about it and then how to show up, and then how this impacts our lives, and then our work, is what I found really helpful, just besides its something every week. And even if I'm miss it, I know I'm missing it. It's a reminder. And then it's that importance that that has in our lives.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Agreed. And I think there's been some benefit to that, taking a look at each of those issues as you described. And there's also a bit of a downside. Back to us learning as we're doing this, we're not going to develop any deep understanding of mass incarceration and criminalization of Black bodies in a month. Even in four 90-minute sessions. It's basically six hours. We'll know more than we knew coming in, but it's a little bit like a survey course, right? A little bit like a buffet. This is all volunteer-led, right? It's a peer-led, volunteer community. And we're lucky enough to have some incredible, both K12, college, adult learning, who are helping to guide our learning journey. And one of the challenges is being topical and timely with stuff that's happening in the world that people want to understand and relate to, knowing the myriad of issues that we want to understand better, and giving people a sense of that, while not becoming like a superficial skimming of the surface of lots of things, but really that then prevent us from going deep on the internal work.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Because our core philosophy, if you will, learning philosophy, is, if we're not willing to think about how all those things have impacted our lives, personally, we're going to continue to stay on an intellectual analytical plane and not on a personal and emotional plane. And at the end of the day, we're driven by our emotions and we're driven by our feelings much more than we'd like to think we are by our intellect and our brain. And so, how do we help people feel this? By grappling with this of make sure we go inward. And by making sure we integrate action assignments into each one of those learning modules. And so, one of the things that's happened over the last three or four months is I said, "Hey, here's what we're looking at this month and here's the action assignment that you're getting at the beginning of the month. And by the end of the month, when we meet in our week four session, we're going to meet in small groups and you're going to share what you've done on that stuff. Either what's worked or what hasn't worked, and we're going to learn from each other through doing, not just as a book club or an intellectual exercise."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And that scratches the itch that we all feel to get some, get something done, while also putting that doing in the context of the reflection. That is what will lead to more skillful action. And so, we find the monthly things can be helpful if they're tied to action. And we also need to be wary of becoming a survey course that gives us a superficial understanding of lots of things without really going deeper internally.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And so, for January and February next year, as an example, we're going to spend a couple months doing some of the internal work presented to us by this incredible book, Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad. It's written as a 28 day sort of reflection action journal. We'll stretch out over two months to give ourselves a little bit more space to grapple with these things. But we're going to be responding to the prompt that she's asking us as a Black woman leader in this work. She's saying we need to grapple with all these different issues and ask ourselves how these things are showing up in our lives. And we're going to do that over a couple months and then figure out, as we grapple with that, things are going to become apparent to us, like that we've probably caused harm that we weren't aware that we caused.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And what would it be like to begin to do some repair work on that harm? That is the action assignment that we all want to avoid. One is we don't want to admit that we cause harm, because we're good guys. "I mean, I didn't mean it that way. And so I'm really sorry if you took it that way." As opposed to owning our impact. And then owning our impact and then actually seeking out someone that you may have caused harm to and apologizing and sharing what you've learned that at least leads you to believe that you may have caused that harm and how that might have impacted them. Knowing that you're not going to be perfect, but calling them in, inviting them in to let you know if you do something again. And so hopefully, those mistakes can be fewer, farther between, less severe, and your learning curve can be much deeper.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
That's an action. That's going to be really uncomfortable for folks, but it's going to be really important. Another version of an action there is going to be... Because it sounds very just purely reflective when you do a bunch of journaling, but okay, now that you've grappled with how white supremacy culture and systems show up, not just individual behavior, but the culture and systems that we operate in, asking people to think about an area in their life, could be their family, could be their community group, could be their workplace where, now with this deeper understanding of how these systems and cultures show up, how have those shown up in one of more of those spheres of influence? And pick one and develop an action plan that you can then vet within our community and with our equity advisor, say, "How am I going to work to dismantle that system? Or shift that culture that is perpetuating racial inequity or racial hierarchy, even though it didn't intend it or we didn't intend it? Or even though we didn't see it before, or we didn't even create it, but it's there, and what can we do?"
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And so even something that feels as reflective, and over multiple months is grappling with this notion of what is white supremacy, culture, and systems, and then translating that personally and then doing the repair work at the interpersonal level and doing the dismantle work in our organizational or community spheres of influence, that to me is where the power of this community is. Because it's a continuous practice of learning, reflection, and action that are continuous feedback loop on each other, and that for which we hold each other accountable.
Tim Cynova:
One of the questions I get frequently when talking about this work that white guys need to be doing is from the people who are not the white guys in leadership. It's specifically in workplaces where it's like, "All right, well, the white CEO is not interested in this work." Or, "The white members of my board are not interested in this work." How do you often respond to that prompt? Because I'm sure you get that from people you speak with in your communities. What's your response?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
That has been one of the most challenging things for me, Tim,. I have caused wounds. I have created scars. I have created harm in organizations I've been in, because I was too impatient on this topic. Either the organization wasn't ready or the organization recognized that I wasn't ready or appropriate to be perceived as leading in this area without the consent of those most impacted by these issues. I come to this question pretty honestly, that it's really complicated. Because at the same time that white men are being called into the work and are needed in the work, and I'm crystal clear that there is a place for white men's voices and white men's action in this work. There's a way that we need to show up in this that's going to be really important, not just whether we're up in it. And so part of that is having sort of a patient urgency about calling other white men into this work, and a gentle persistence, a loving persistence about calling people into this work and recognizing that these inequities have existed and have been growing for 400 years.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Our job isn't to solve them by Q4 or in four years’ time. It's not going to happen. And so, we have to get comfortable with a lack of closure. We have to get comfortable with our own lack of agency. And we still have to take responsibility for doing our own work. And through that example and our consistency of doing the work, that and of itself makes it harder for others to stay on the sideline. Just the fact that we keep on doing it makes it harder for others, because it's constantly there like a fly buzzing around your ear that you can't get rid of. Like, "They're still doing that. I thought that would've gone away by now." Right? "I thought it was performative. I thought it was just reacting to what happened with Floyd or Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery. I thought it was just there for the moment, but no, they're still doing that. And they're still calling me in to this work."
Jay Coen Gilbert:
That consistency and persistence, I think, is the key. Because people have to come to this when they're ready. They'll be ready sooner if you keep on inviting them. Eventually, someone will accept your invitation. And maybe they didn't like a dance party, but they like a dinner club. Or maybe they like an Irish pub and not a tablecloth dinner. People are going to want to show up in different ways at different things. And we have to keep inviting folks in, in different ways that meet their needs and meet them where they are, while not allowing it to be acceptable that they can do nothing. And that's a really difficult tension to hold, and one where I don't pretend to have the answer. But the best mantra that I keep in my head is, if you have a conversation with somebody and they leave that conversation willing to have another one, that's probably a success. And you're not going to get everything you want out of one conversation or one training or whatever the thing is. This is a process of lifelong learning and unlearning and translating that learning into action.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And as you said, none of us have the answers. None of us what we're doing, because we've never been here before. It's literally uncharted territory as a society. And so, if it's scary for people, if it's uncomfortable for people, we have to recognize that it was scary and uncomfortable for us too, at different stages of our journey. And if we can show up at that kind of empathy and recognition that they are me and I am them, and just like I wasn't ready for a long time, but something happened that I felt like I could come in and then I did, I trust that something will happen for everybody else, and I just have to keep on creating opportunities for them to say yes, and then make that experience of saying yes as supportive, without being coddling, but with as supportive as possible for them so that they're just willing to come back the next time.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
So, sorry, one other... this is a fun anecdote. I never thought about this before. One of the most fun things I ever got to do as a dad was to coach little league. And we went in my first year of coaching, we got called into the gym at seven o'clock one Sunday morning to get trained in had to be a coach. And it was a former minor league player who got his 10-day ticket to the show once, whatever it was, and he's going to tell us how to be coaches. And the thing that he shared with us, amidst all the stations and trainings and specific mechanics of this, that, and the other thing, he said, "Look, at the end of the day, you've got one job. You've got to catch him doing something right." Because every kid knows when they make a mistake. They don't need you to tell them. This is an incredibly hard sport. Hall of Famers fail 7 out of 10 times. So, this is really, really hard. And so your only job is to catch them doing something right so they come back next time for the next practice, because no one is going to get good at this after one practice or one season or one game or with one lesson about whatever it is. This takes the 10,000 hours. This takes all that kind of time.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And the only thing that's going to have people putting in that time is if they choose to do it. You can't force a kid to spend 10,000 hours doing anything. They have to want to do it. And if we want to have competence, forget about mastery. In being white men showing up for racial justice, we're going to have to put in real time. And the only way people put in that time is if they choose to do it. And the only reason they'll choose to do it tomorrow is if their experience today or yesterday was a positive one.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And so, we want to catch people doing something right. We want to celebrate their small wins, including the mistakes that they made that they've learned from, and invite them to come in for the next meeting. And then the next meeting. And just take that one step at a time, because that's what it's going to take. The lesson from as a little league coach, I think, applies to being in community with other white men on racial justice, which is let's catch each other doing something right. Let's make it a challenging, but rewarding and fulfilling experience through building great relationships. And then people will choose to continue coming back. And that will lead to right action. And all those right actions will, together, begin to chip away and chip away and chip away at the culture and systems that have gotten us into the place we're in now.
Tim Cynova:
Jay, so powerful. Patient urgency, loving persistence. So powerful, caring, and vulnerable. There's so much there that you shared already. Is there something you want to share as we're landing the plane here?
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Someone in our community shared last night, during our year end celebration, that after a year and a half of doing this work together in community, he finally realized that he wasn't doing this work for them, for Black, Indigenous, and people of color. That he was doing this work for himself. That doing this work has enriched his life, because its allowed him to become closer to the man he wants to be. Its allowed him to be the husband, the father, the friend that he wants to be. That he's had conversations with Black and brown friends that he's never had before, that have brought him closer to them, and have opened up all kinds of richness in his life, that have made this fulfilling work, and that carry him through moments of exhaustion and frustration. And if I were leaving something would be, I have also had that experience where, over the last five years of more intentionally being involved in lots of different communities doing this work, and particularly with this community of white men over the last 18 months is, I have built so many relationships and deepened so many relationships that have just made my life better, more fulfilling, more fun, more joyful.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And I've been exposed to things I haven't been exposed to that have made me a better dad, a better husband, a better colleague, partner, a leader, in the workplace, in my community, et cetera. And so, there is joy in this work and there is a place for white men in this work, who often feel like they're just being asked to go away. Those that are paying attention, feel like they're being asked to just go away, step aside, step back, make room, create space, sacrifice, give up. And there is reason to do all of those things. And there is also reason to show up and to show up in your full power and with all the advantages that you bring, but to use that power wisely and to shift it generously and to build it in others thoughtfully.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
And when you do that well, that's also fulfilling. And it is beginning to chip away at those systems and structures and cultures that are diminishing all of us. Our humanity, our economy, our democracy. And so, as we do that, person by person, action by action, we are restoring our humanity. We're strengthening our economy. We're safeguarding our democracy. All of those things are happening as we build relationships that fill our own cup. I would just say, what's in it for me? I think there's a lot in it for me. And there's a lot in it for us. It can be fun, too. And that's been the biggest lesson for me, is finding community in this work has been a blessing.
Tim Cynova:
Jay, thank you so much for the care. Thank you so much for the invitation, both personally to the community, and to our listeners. And thank you for the kindness that you shared during an anecdote we didn't talk about that happened several years when we first met and connected on this work. All of it's very meaningful. And thanks for being on the podcast.
Jay Coen Gilbert:
Thank you, Tim. I really appreciate the work you've done and I appreciate how you show up in all these spaces, from when we first met at that Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit, to how you've showed up in White Men for Racial Justice, and the work that you're doing to bring this, your skillfulness, this to this work with other organizations through Work. Shouldn't. Suck, and Fractured Atlas, and the Opera House and SHRM and all the things that you do. I see you and I value and I so appreciate what you're doing and how you're doing it. I'm glad to know you, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or a phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep3: Conversation with John Orr (EP.55)
In episode three of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews John Orr, Executive Director of the Philadelphia-based Art-Reach.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Updated
March 17, 2022
In episode three of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews John Orr, Executive Director of the Philadelphia-based Art-Reach.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guest
JOHN ORR is the Executive Director at Art-Reach in the city of Philadelphia where he leads an effort to end systemic exclusion for people with disabilities and people experiencing poverty within Philadelphia’s cultural sector. Over his tenure Art-Reach has positioned itself as an innovative leader in accessible arts programming. The past 23 years of Orr’s career has focused on ensuring cultural access to as many people as possible. He has served as President of the Museum Council of Greater Philadelphia and has worked at large museums, small community art centers and international research institutions. Orr connects with the disability community and the cultural sector though his work on the Mayor’s Commission on People with Disabilities, the Board of the PA Humanities and the Board of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Orr identifies as neurodiverse and lives in South Philadelphia with his partner Allison, 11-year old daughter Maddie, and two grey cats who hold deep disdain for each other.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
John Orr:
It was incredibly powerful to recognize the privilege and the position that I had, and to leverage that privilege and power in a way that put the community's voice first. I don't think I'll ever do it any differently ever again. The result was worth the discomfort of checking my own privilege in that moment.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck. A podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini-series called white men and the journey towards anti-racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast, where my co-host Lauren Ruffin and I introduced this series and frame these conversations. All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic, not by white guys, can be found on workshouldntsuck.co.
Tim Cynova:
In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each defined the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti-oppression work, others say they approach it more through a justice lens. Others, inclusion and belonging. Still others, equity and impact. Through these conversations we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging.
Tim Cynova:
Since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with. On today's conversation, I'm joined by John Orr, executive director of the Philadelphia based Art-Reach. An organization creating and advocating for and expanding accessible opportunities in the arts, so the full spectrum of society is served. You can find John's bio linked in the description for this episode. So, in the interest of time, let's get going. John, welcome to the podcast.
John Orr:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Tim Cynova:
Let's just start with, how do you typically introduce yourself and how do you typically introduce Art-Reach and its work?
John Orr:
Sure. My name is John Orr, I'm the executive director at Art-Reach. I'm a white male in my early forties, salt and pepper hair. Today, I'm actually wearing a light blue, grayish shirt, with a small print, darker blue flower on it. Yeah, I've been at Art-Reach, I guess, for about six years now. Oh, actually, almost seven years now. At Art-Reach, we believe that disability is a product of design rather than diagnosis and that good design creates an accessible world. All we have to do is change the world. Right now, people assume that changing the world or creating an inclusive accessible world is too hard or too big.
John Orr:
But people just like us, like you and me and anyone out there listening, people just like us built the entire world. They weren't superheros, they weren't super smart or anything like that, they were people just like us. They built a world that works for a lot of other people, but it doesn't really work for everyone. So, it's up to us, people just like us, to finish the job, and so Art-Reach is working to finish that job. Along the way, we're going to change the world. We just invite people along, ask them to wander down this unpredictable path of experimentation and innovation and imagination and what if statements, and I hope they do. Because at the end of that path, we're going to arrive at the inclusive world that Art-Reach hopes to build.
Tim Cynova:
So, you define the work of Art-Reach through an inclusion lens. Do you broaden that? Are we talking about anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, diversity? How do those intersect with the work that you're doing through inclusion?
John Orr:
Yeah, so we definitely fall into the anti-crowd. Personally, I think there's a fundamental difference between embracing inclusion and embracing anti-exclusion. To me, inclusion is very outward facing. It's all about widening your circle, right? So, there's people outside your circle and you want to include them or bring them in closer, so you make your circle bigger. That's one approach. But for me, anti-inclusion work not only pushes you to include more people, but it makes you examine the factors, the people, the systems, the policies that you currently have in your circle that kept you from being inclusive in the first place.
John Orr:
Anti-inclusion, or I'm sorry, anti-exclusion to me includes the act of inward reflection and identification of the things that created exclusion in the first place, so that quite frankly, you can remove them from your circle before you try to widen it. It's difficult, it's difficult to have real inclusion and to create authentic, safe spaces if you allow the things that made you exclusive or that kept people out. It's hard to be a safe space if those things are still present in your organization. It's hard decisions, but that's what ... to me, that's what leadership is.
John Orr:
That's what we have to fundamentally change about our organizations. It's not just how many people can we say, come in here and check us out. It's "Hey, you should feel safe here because we've gotten rid of all the things that made this an unsafe space for you in the past."
Tim Cynova:
What does that look like practically in your organization? What are some examples?
John Orr:
Yeah, so it's messy, right? It's hard because you have to be able to tell people, no, and you have to say, I'm going to look at a high performer in my organization who may get good measurable results, but who may not be treating employees fairly, may not be using language in the correct way. It's not being afraid to say, I'm willing to give up that performance because I know that in the long run my organization is going to be a safer space and it's going to be a more inclusive space, and it's going to be a more authentic space. One of the ways that that happens is, it sounds simpler than it actually is, but it's just getting people to your table and then shutting up and listening to them and doing what they say.
John Orr:
The more perspectives that you can bring into the organization who have faced barriers, if they're willing to sit down with you and give you the time and take the burden of sharing information with you, then don't waste that opportunity. Use that as a chance to improve your organization. You'll start to see why making harder cuts is really difficult. When I came to Art-Reach, we were serving about 13,000 people a year. I was a brand new executive director. We had, I think, 12 different programs that we were running with a staff of six. There was so much potential, but we were just constantly in our own way.
John Orr:
So, when I came in there, it was like, "Okay, well, let's talk to the community, find out what they want, when they tell us, let's listen to it. Then, let's get rid of all the things that we do, even if we like them, that aren't helping the community in any tangible way." So, I came in and I cut two thirds of our programming. I reduced the size of the staff. We balanced out the budget. The following year we served 47,000 people. That number has just continued to grow. That's a hard decision to make. I thought I was going to get fired. I think a lot of the community that we were engaging didn't like me as a director, but at the end of the day, the change we made propelled the organization forward.
Tim Cynova:
My colleague, Lauren Ruffin likes to say, do less comma better.
John Orr:
Yeah, if you've got limited resources, put as much of them as you can into as few items as possible and just do them really well.
Tim Cynova:
What were some of those changes that you made that resulted with the programs and services, and I assume language and policy through the whole ecosystem?
John Orr:
One of the ones that comes to mind, we had this accessible equipment that we housed at Art-Reach that we could send out to theaters for verbal description, shows, and for captioning at shows. It was great, like, "Okay, so we have this equipment, we'll rent it out." It was so janky. It rattled when you picked it up. Our technical expertise around it was, jiggle the cord if it doesn't work. It was just so dumb. I thought, there's all these theaters that rely on us to distribute this equipment so that they can share it because they all say that they can't afford it. But at the end of the day, the equipment was like $5,000 a one-time expenditure.
John Orr:
It was a capital expense for all these places, and we're talking about theaters that had millions of dollars in their budget. This is an immaterial cost, even if it causes a deficit. So, instead of continuing on with this program, where we rented out equipment, I called the dealer and Art-Reach brokered a deal for theaters in Philadelphia to get discounted rates on equipment that they could buy on their own. What we did was, instead of renting out this equipment piecemeal, now we had 12 theaters with their own equipment that could do on demand accessibility.
John Orr:
So, we took the burden off of ourselves. We gave a benefit to the disability community because we were increasing access, and we gave the cultural community a little bit of self-sufficient behavior in the process.
Tim Cynova:
I want to shift a little bit, because we dove right into the organization, which is great. Maybe back up or go to the side and talk about, you're a white guy, so how do you come to the work? What's the journey that you've been on?
John Orr:
Yeah, so my journey coming into this work was not intentional at all. I think it was by happenstance, but in a weird way. I picked up all these little things throughout my career, all these little experiences that built the foundation. When all those little things were woven together, they built the foundation that I brought with me into Art-Reach. Now, when I came into Art-Reach, I had no real background in inclusion work, which was terrifying, but I had all these little micro moments to be perfectly blunt. When I got the job at Art-Reach, I was a first time executive director and I was convinced that it was going to be a giant moment for my career.
John Orr:
What caught me completely off guard was that my time at Art-Reach would completely change my life, and what I didn't know at that time ... So, I'm neurodiverse, but I was undiagnosed for a very long time. I loved this sense of community. I learned that when I was at the Fleisher Art Memorial and we were engaging immigrants and refugees who came to Philadelphia. I saw how much stronger organizations could become when they centered the communities that they were aiming to reduce the barriers for. Early in my career, I was on the front line of admissions in museums.
John Orr:
I would see families come in and the families who could put a credit card down and just say, "Hey, I'm bringing my family in and it was no big deal." Then, I saw the families whose parents were scrounging different cards or different change in dollars just to get their kids into a museum. So, the kids were really happy, but the parents were really stressed out. All those micro moments, when put together, prepared me in such a dynamic way for what I was about to do at Art-Reach. Even though I had never led an organization in that way before.
John Orr:
I think when I came to Art-Reach and we decided to remove the cultural sector from the pedestal and we put the disability community up there, that was my aha moment because all of a sudden, like, sure, I was a white guy, I didn't identify as neurodiverse at that time, I had been diagnosed but I was ignoring it back then. We just listened to what people who were experiencing barriers were actually facing, what they were feeling. We built empathy, and that empathy is what drove Art-Reach forward.
John Orr:
It was incredibly powerful to recognize the privilege and the position that I had, and to leverage that privilege and power in a way that put the community's voice first. I don't think I'll ever do it any differently ever again. The result was worth the discomfort of checking my own privilege in that moment.
Tim Cynova:
I think that's really powerful.
John Orr:
There were a lot of little things and a few big experiences, but mostly little moments in my life and my career that were woven together, that when woven together created this strong foundation and empathy, and got me to where I am. I never intentionally set out to build a career around inclusion and the barriers to it. I stumbled into it. I didn't have a ton of professional experience in the space at all. Quite frankly, I was convinced my board was going to fire me six or seven months into my time at Art-Reach. I had cut the staff. I had cut the programming. But they were really patient and they were really gracious and they gave me the space that I needed.
John Orr:
Yeah, I think when I came in as a first time director, like I had said earlier, I thought this role had the potential to be a pivotal experience for my career. What caught me off guard was how much Art-Reach was about to change my entire life. It was at Art-Reach that I was able to embrace my own identity as a person who's neurodiverse. I ran from that diagnosis for a long time, but what I found was that by centering the community, by listening to them, by putting their words into action instead of my own ideas, and being a little bit bullish about it, maybe that's where my privilege was best suited.
John Orr:
If you can use your privilege to help elevate the voice of others and to push their ideas and their agenda forward, even if it runs counter to what you would normally have done, then that's a good use of power. For me, that's transferring power to the community and putting them in a position to be heard, and that's what we did. I think going through that process not only helped Art-Reach, but it helped me personally come to terms with my own diagnosis over the years. To finally accept it and get the support that I needed to be a better partner, parent, leader, and everything else.
Tim Cynova:
You mentioned support from your board, and I'm curious to dig in here because you mentioned thinking you'd be fired six months in. Those of us who have run nonprofit organizations know the structure does not oftentimes reward innovation or risk taking. If you take risks and they turn out well, you get to keep your job. If you don't, you might lose it. In the moment in which we're living, in our lives amid a global pandemic, where the concept of work and life and all of these things that are being questioned. It's a moment when we can actually try things and do things differently that we might not have thought about two years or might not have tried two years ago.
Tim Cynova:
Yet, there's still this structure of board staff, donors that we're working with, that often that's really outdated, built in white supremacy culture, very patriarchal for a number of organizations. There's a disconnect sometimes between the amount of time and energy and learning the staff is doing versus the board. When you look just, again, there's 261 working days a year, and most boards maybe spend 10 days a year thinking about the organization, if they're not doing the personal work outside of it. So, there's a lot of dynamics here that make it challenging for a lot of organizations to say, "Yeah, I would like to do that."
Tim Cynova:
But did you just, one, luck out and get a board that was a unicorn, that you're able to work with? Or, what was that dynamic like and what kind of advice would you give to leaders, staff who are in organizations who are like, "This is the work we need to be doing. This is the time we need to be doing it in, and all these other things are at play."
John Orr:
When I was looking at the series of the podcast in general, I was like, "Okay, this is a podcast hosted by a white man, interviewing a bunch of middle aged white men, giving advice to other middle aged white men." My first thought was, "Man, that reminds me of my early board meetings at Art-Reach." When I joined Art-Reach, the board that I inherited had no active members with a disability. There was one person of color on the board and it wasn't just majority white men. It was majority white men from a very specific area of the greater Philadelphia region who all knew each other too.
John Orr:
It was problematic. So, one of the first things that I did when I came in, I was like, "If we're going to center the community, we have to start working toward representation on the board level that's just different, and looks dramatically different at board meetings than it looks right now." Luckily, as I was making the changes through Art-Reach, there were some board members who didn't agree with them and decided to leave on their own. Whenever there's a spot, you open up opportunity. But we were really intentional about starting to get members of the disability community involved in the governance work.
John Orr:
So, we still have a lot of work to do on that front, but we have a 15-member board now, and I can say, it's no longer majority male, majority white male from the western suburbs of Philadelphia and 7% people of color. It's a board of 15 people and 27% of my board is a person ... or identifies as having a disability. Another three members of the board are either caretakers or work directly in the disability community. A third of our board are people of color, 20% of our board are people who identify as black. I think there's still a lot of work to do on that front to bring more representation into the board itself, but that's movement that I'm proud of.
John Orr:
It's definitely movement that has changed the conversation and the work at Art-Reach. For me, it's all about putting people at the table and giving them the opportunity to influence the flow of work. We just recently went through a governance restructure with our entire board. So, I don't want to get into a boring board conversation about this, but most nonprofit boards are set up with this. We have a marketing committee and a development committee and a finance committee, and all these other boring committees and they meet with staff and the staff get frustrated, because they're like, "Oh, your marketing ideas aren't actually relevant to what we need to do."
John Orr:
Then, the board gets frustrated because their ideas never get implemented on the staff level, because they're just not possible. We decided to dissolve all of our committees and just get rid of them and reboot the governance structure. The committees that we have now, we have the influential leadership committee, which is our, what we would refer to as our why committee. That's working on strategy to make Art-Reach an influential leader in the national conversation around cultural accessibility. We have our broader reach committee, that committee's the who and where, who are we serving? What kind of audiences are we serving?
John Orr:
What groups are we serving and where are we serving them at? Then, we have a business model committee, and their job is the how, so while we want to be influential leaders and we want to reach more people in more places, we want to be sustainably set up as a business to evaluate properly. Evaluate with an eye toward innovation and to keep the organization in a different space. Those are three conversations that the staff don't necessarily need to have at the strategy level, but it's been really fun to turn from strategy into operation at the staff level. That whole conversation has shifted the entire dynamic of the board governance that we have at Art-Reach as well.
John Orr:
It's cool, it's like everyone's fired up about it, again, in true Art-Reach fashion and experiment. I've never tried to work with a board that was set up that way, and there is risk and potential for failure or for all of this to crumble and blow up in our face, but everybody's game, and it's more fun. It makes the conversations a little more lively.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, that's really awesome. Do you maintain similar board structure with officers and members in a traditional way or are you messing around with that one, that as well?
John Orr:
We haven't messed around with it too much. We have a chair, a vice chair, secretary, treasurer, and then we always try to have a community advocate on the executive committee at all times. So, a person with a disability placed onto the executive committee just because that's the one committee that got held over and we just ... they handled now the finance review, the governance stuff, all the board stuff. But we always want to have representation on that board or on that committee. That committee right now is five people, 20%. We have a person with a disability, we have two people of color, and then we're split. I think it's 40% male, 60% female.
John Orr:
We want representation on that committee as well. We make sure that we've got representation split amongst all of the other committees. The executive committee is split up between the three other committees that we have. We're all tying everyone together so that the conversations don't get too out of control for any one committee, but yeah, it's working. I think we're going to go into a session next year where we really talk about what this board is and what it could be. We have a consultant that we're going to work with on that project. But I think there's going to be a little bit of introspection.
John Orr:
I think us taking care of the committee realignment was a good project for us. There's a part of me as the executive director that wants to see what the board self-governs and how they start to implement some things on their own, now that the representation is different than what it was six years ago.
Tim Cynova:
That's really cool stuff. I said messed around with, which in the best possible way of experimenting and iterating.
John Orr:
Yeah. Well, I think on the experimentation piece it's interesting, Art-Reach experiments with so many things. Most of the time we talk about the programmatic pieces, because that's the fun stuff, right? The idea that somebody gives us one day and they just say like, "Oh, why can't we do this?" The next thing we know, we're creating a 10-week choreographed performance with Philadelphia ballet. We have people with intellectual disabilities dancing with professional dancers, and they're choreographing an original world premiere performance. That kind of stuff is so cool and the experimentation and risk of failure there is so high.
John Orr:
But yet, I like to think that we can be experimental and comfortable with risk and comfortable with failure at every level of the organization. I think the board conversation is where that intersects a little bit
Tim Cynova:
For me, that's been the biggest disconnect I felt, having worked in the cultural sector for almost my entire career and seeing the amazing work that gets on the stage, on the screen, on the gallery wall, in public spaces. Knowing who's working in these organizations and just accepting, "Well, that's just how you run an organization." Like the book says in 1975, we're like, "Why do you check that creativity?" I think that's why this moment in our lives is so exciting because it's exercising that in a different way. People can say like, "Oh, right, we don't have to accept this.
Tim Cynova:
We can center anti-racism, anti-oppression, inclusion, equity, justice in how we want to live and be in our work." It's exercising those muscles, right that like, "Oh, we haven't had to think about how we change our workplace policies in a way that does that. But why don't we?" I have a colleague, she's like, "Your employee handbook is just in a Google doc. It's not written in stone. Just change the policy. It's as simple as going in and editing the document."
John Orr:
Yup. Yeah. That's the same way I feel. We've had long conversations about this. It's like, "Yeah, your policies, they're written on paper. They can be rewritten anywhere you want." We've talked about this in the scope of employment law in the past. Civil right laws, employment right laws, they're all written on paper and they can be changed at any time. They're the standard that we aim for. What we can actually strive to do is set a progressive agenda that goes much further than those laws. Actually, say we have to meet, because at any time, those civil rights laws can be whittled away with a pen held by somebody else, who doesn't understand the ramifications of their power.
John Orr:
What can't be taken away from anybody is their human right. So, at Art-Reach, our first core value of the organization is that art is a human right, and that everyone should have access to it. But we understand that there are groups of people who have historically faced barriers, the disability community, people experiencing poverty. We want to work specifically with those communities to understand the barriers that they faced, hear what they think good solutions are, and then put those solutions into practice.
Tim Cynova:
One of the things we've talked about before is the difference between equity and equality as it comes to employment law and workplaces. We hear a lot of organizations committing to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I'm not always sure if people understand what it means to get to through equity in the workplace. As you think about language, policy, practices, programs, initiatives, to actually embed that into the organization, I wonder if you can ... We've spiritedly talked about this in the past. I'm wondering if you can take the baton on this one. How do you think about equity, equality, employment law, workplace, and is it possible to get to true equity in organizations?
John Orr:
I'm going to further complicate the question. I don't think that equity is the goal. I think that it's a step towards the goal. When we talk about equality, you're talking about inputs that people get. Everybody gets the same treatment, but the same treatment, if it's equal across the system, doesn't create equal output from whatever system you're trying to navigate, because that system's fucked up. If the system is broken, then equality is irrelevant because one group is going to get more than the other group anyway. If you do equity, equity is focused on a leveled playing field with the output from the system.
John Orr:
Some groups of people get more support and that provides this equitable output. But what that does is that because the input is not the same, some group is getting more than another group. The group, generally the one who would have power, feels like they're being put upon, like they're not getting the same treatment now. The difference is that they have power to influence that equity in a way that benefits them. The other side, doesn't have it. What I want to get to is justice, right? Where the inputs can be the same, the output can be the same, and the reason that it all can be the same is because we've taken the system and we fucking fixed it.
John Orr:
We've fixed it. All of a sudden it doesn't matter that we're supporting both groups or all the groups, or whatever, however we want to talk about it, we've set up a system that has been balanced out at a systemic level. So, the inputs can be equal and the output can be equal because we've established justice within the system. People might think that that's too idealistic or too whatever. But if we don't shoot for further than we want to get to, I don't know, I would love an equitable world. I would love for the outcomes to be equal or equitable for everyone.
John Orr:
I just don't believe that human nature will ever allow that to be the case because of the inequality that some groups will see to an equitable system. I think that a system based in justice is that next step beyond equity that says we can give everyone the same inputs. They can get the same outputs, and the reason that's possible is because we've taken a racist and oppressive system and we've made it right. We've justified it and we've set it straight. That's the outcome that Art-Reach is striving for. I just want to keep pushing. I think the shift from equality to equity has been great. I think it's a shift on a much longer path though.
Tim Cynova:
Part of the aim of this series in interviewing white men in leadership of organizations, specifically for other white men to be able to listen to, who are on this journey as well, is that we can start sharing the things that have made impact and resonated with us. Advice and reflections, and don't go that way, take my advice. You don't want to try that. Sharing with other white guys, what advice or reflections or prompts would you like to provide that you found personally resonant and helpful?
John Orr:
We'll see how many LinkedIn connections I lose because of this, but number one, get over yourself, you're not that important. I mean that in a lot of ways. I try to go into a room with people who are seeking equity and I try not to be the one who's leading the conversation in there. I'd much rather listen and implement than give people ideas that they haven't generated on their own. So, my advice is get over yourself, you're not that important. Number two is that for most white men, please understand that your personal discomfort around a topic is not a good enough excuse to take away another person's human rights.
John Orr:
Your inability to budget for accessible accommodations is not a good enough excuse to violate human rights to access. Those are my prompts. If I'm going to be less antagonistic, the transfer of power was a really important moment for Art-Reach and seeing the outcome that came from that transfer, and not just from a performance perspective for the organization, but from a community perspective in Philadelphia, it's changed the city. It hasn't just changed Art-Reach, it's changed the city and that's what we want to do.
John Orr:
Ideally, Art-Reach will put itself out of business, because I don't want to be fighting for an equitable or a justice based world forever. I want the world to be justice based, and the longer Art-Reach exists, the longer there's proof that it's not there yet.
Tim Cynova:
Living amid a global pandemic with the work you're doing, working to change the city, working to change nonprofit structure, experimenting, what other things are you working on right now in that intersection? Either within the organization or within your broader community.
John Orr:
At the beginning of the pandemic Art-Reach made a really intentional decision. I met with the board and I said, "Look, the cultural sector is just decimating its employee base right now, and I don't want to be a part of that. I want us to make a commitment right now that the hill we will die on is that we kept our staff employed for the duration, no matter what happens. We have some money in the bank. If we lay everybody off, we're not going to do anything, we're going to lose relevance." The board was very receptive to that idea, and we were able to keep it.
John Orr:
We didn't lay off anybody during the pandemic, and because of that, we had the full force of our team to be able to pivot and think about opportunities as they came up. We always talked about, if we could wipe the slate clean for the cultural sector and start over, could we build an inclusive world? It felt like for a moment we were just like, "Oh, my God, it happened." We have a chance to reinvent now. I wanted us to be able to be proactive in planning so that when all these places reopened and there was all this chaos in the reopening in the cultural sector, that Art-Reach was positioned as the stabilizing force that could help you welcome back audiences in an accessible way.
John Orr:
Welcome back your staff with training opportunities and all these different things. For us, the pandemic in the last year was an interesting time to navigate that new reality of Art-Reach. We don't produce a ton of our own programming, we produce programming in partnership with other organizations and they were all closed. So, we were like, "Okay, what are we doing?" Everybody shifted to digital and virtual engagement. We evaluate it really quickly and said, "Look, if we're going to do this, we have to do it right from the jump." I think there was a lot of excitement about all of the available options that people had when things went virtual.
John Orr:
It started to creep back into that old conversation though, of like, "Okay, there's so much available, but why aren't people captioning things? Why aren't people providing ASL interpretation? How is it being made available to my community?" I think the most impactful piece that we mentioned to our partners is we're like, "Oh, yeah, you're all excited that you did this digital program and you can attract audiences from around the world. But what made you unique in Philadelphia? If you're the one museum that deals with whatever, or you're the one theater company that does whatever kind of theater, what made you unique in Philadelphia?"
John Orr:
You're no longer navigating that space because the people in Philadelphia have access to your company in every city across the country and every city across the world. So, you need to be able to engage your home community in a way that's meaningful to them through accessible and inclusive practices. I think we started to see that a little bit. I like to say that at times, there's that old saying, that we felt like we were building the plane as we were flying it. I think at times it felt like we were jumping out of a plane without a parachute, and at other times it felt like we were parachuting without a plane.
John Orr:
We were just like running around with a giant thing attached to our backs. We weren't getting very far, but we stayed relevant. We increased our trainings. We increased our presence. I feel like we elevated the voice of the disability community and we embedded ourselves into spaces that we knew we could meet the disability community in Philadelphia. Now, I'm on the Mayor's Commission for People with Disabilities. I'm the chair of the Recreation and Arts Committee of that commission. Art-Reach has a seat on the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council. We have a seat on the Disability Pride Pennsylvania board.
John Orr:
We just found where our communities were still getting together and still gathering, and we met them where they were again, but in a new virtual way. We brought the same authenticity to those conversations and it helped us survive. Now, we're positioned in a spot where we feel like we're emerging from this pandemic with more momentum and more opportunity ahead of us than maybe some other organizations that were similarly placed as Art-Reach.
Tim Cynova:
About a year ago I gave a presentation to a group of corporate leaders around the work that, I was at Fractured Atlas, so our anti-racism, anti-oppression work, and all the things we had tried and done. When I finished, the very first question was like, "That was really interesting, but can you share some tangible things?" I'm like, "That was what the entire presentation was." [inaudible 00:38:52] I failed this group that I totally missed that? I was relaying this to my colleague, Courtney Harge, at the time and she said, "I think people confused tangible with impactful, and impactful with visible."
Tim Cynova:
She said, "Adding pronouns to an email is tangible, ending gender discrimination is impactful, and increasing gender diversity at an organization is visible." As you think about the work and approach that Art-Reach is taking, what resonates with you in those distinctions?
John Orr:
I don't even remember who told me this, but they said, you can only lead at the speed at which people are willing to be led. So, when I look at this confusing tangible with impactful and impactful with visible, I don't really see conflict there. What I see are multiple inroads to different people on their journey as they're going through this inclusion process. Yeah, I want Art-Reach to be visible. I want the community to be visible within Art-Reach. I also want our work to be impactful and I want it to be tangible. So, I can view those as maybe start with tangible, that maybe becomes impactful, and then that creates visibility.
John Orr:
I don't necessarily think it's linear that way though. I think, if anything, the work that I do at Art-Reach and my personal experience with neurodiversity is that everyone's at a different spot on the spectrum of where they are in this work. You have to be able to make avenues for engagement for everyone on that spectrum. So, for some person, it might just be like, "Oh, my gosh, I've never done this before. I'm going to start adding my pronouns to Zoom and to my email." That's a good first step for them. Do they have to do more? Yeah, eventually, but they're on a learning curve for themselves as well.
John Orr:
I think if you simply put something out there and that's all you do, if I went to Art-Reach and I said, "Hey, everyone, we're just going to," I don't even have an example, "we're going to add pronouns to our email." They'd be like, "Cool." Then, we didn't do a damn thing after that, it's just performative. It doesn't mean anything. It's indicative of how ignorant you are to the actual problem. In fact, I remember, this is anecdotal, but I remember working at a museum and you walk into the museum and they have these cool signs on the pillars. As you walk by them, it said, welcome.
John Orr:
Then, it would change to all these different languages so that you could just walk by it and it would say welcome. It felt very welcoming to everyone who walked the door. The issue was you got to the information desk and there wasn't a damn brochure in anything but English. It's like you put this bandaid facade up, you raise the expectation for people as they come through, and then there's no integrity behind it. I do think that those visible, the tangible piece is something you can see, but if there's no actual spirit, or plan, or integrity behind it, it doesn't mean anything. I don't think that we then cut that out.
John Orr:
I think that there are some people who need that first step. My job as a leader is to say, "Okay, this is the first step." Then, you need to go on this little unpredictable stumbling path of opportunity and discomfort to get to how we take something that's tangible and make it actually impactful or meaningful. Then, what that means to translate into visibility. We may say at Art-Reach, add your pronouns, and all of a sudden we may find out that one of our staff members is non-binary or identifies as non-binary and has different pronouns.
John Orr:
All of a sudden, that's a breakthrough that maybe that person didn't feel access to sharing it any other way, but that opens up an opportunity for growth for the organization and for individuals within the organization. I think visibility is huge. I think impact is huge, and I think tangible pieces are needed. Sometimes I think it actually has to go backwards, right? When all of the racial unrest happened in Philadelphia after George Floyd's murder, there was this big push by the cultural community to put out statements. It was happening in May, and Art-Reach put out a statement.
John Orr:
To me, that's like a visible thing that people were doing, that some organizations did without any integrity. They threw up their thing and they said, "Oh, we did it because we don't want to get the backlash on social media. We put up our MLK quote and that's all we got to do. At Art-Reach, we made a statement, we kept it really short. We said, "We support the broken silence in Philadelphia and we support black communities across the region." But then we went a step further to make our statement impactful. We actively wrote to all of our donors during our end of fiscal year donor push and we said, "Stop donating to us.
John Orr:
Donate to these six organizations that the staff have identified that are serving the black community on topics of mental health. We want you to support them with your dollars instead of Art-Reach. We're going to have a deficit this year. It doesn't matter what you donate to us, we're going to have a hole. So, you can throw your money into a pit or you can throw your money into a cause that has an actual need right now. We got a lot of blow back about that for donors who said, "We want to support you. You're telling us not to now, and you're telling us that our donations aren't even worth it."
John Orr:
My response to them was like, "Look, Art-Reach is going to be here in September. We just are. We're not going anywhere, but we can't say that about every black life in Philadelphia." Unfortunately, later that year Walter Wallace Jr. was shot and killed by police. He was a black man with a history of mental illness. The police department in Philadelphia had put a mental health specialist on the 911 call line to address just these situations, but they don't work on Mondays, the one person. This incident happened on the day that they were off, and Walter Wallace died. I didn't send a note out to my donors and say like, "Hey, I told you so. This is why we needed the support."
John Orr:
But that's why we did it. It wasn't for necessarily what had happened. It was to prevent what was going to happen, even if that's an unknown. I think for me, that's impactful and tangible because we're giving up our power, and that's what this all comes back to. That fundraising campaign was power that Art-Reach has. We know that we can raise money from that campaign to actively say, "We want to give that up and reroute that to other organizations because they need it more." It was something that I felt strongly about, my staff felt strongly about, and that my board supported.
John Orr:
I think my board supported it because we've taken a more progressive approach to a world where human life is valued and a world where human rights and social justice is at the forefront of our work and our actions.
Tim Cynova:
That's a really powerful example of living values and using power. As we land the plane on our conversation today, where do you want to land it?
John Orr:
I think for me, one of the really fun things that my team and I just went through is we built these core values for the organization about five years ago or so, six years ago. One of the things that we forgot about when we built the core values for our work was the core values for how we work. So, we just went through a strategic planning process. I said to the staff, I was like, "Look, I think it's important that we define not necessarily the work culture that we have today, but the work culture that we want." So, we had really honest conversations and we came up with these seven values that we wanted to put forth in our work environment.
John Orr:
They came out to be that we value a collaborative process that includes different perspectives and informs the vision for everything that we do at Art-Reach, from planning, implementation, and evaluation. We value trust as the root of our conversation, and trust allows us to have open and honest conversations about evaluation and creates healthy conflict and straightforward evaluation of our work. We value the lived experience perspective and background of our coworkers. We embrace anti-ableism, anti-racism practices to create systemic change through intentional changes in policy, action, and programs. We value experimentation.
John Orr:
That's been ... as our way toward innovation. We embrace risk and failure. We value choice in how and when we work, and this one was important for the entire group. I believe wholeheartedly that the idea of work and life being in balance is just a myth. I think that it's important for me that every Art-Reach employee has autonomy to choose when to prioritize their work, when to prioritize their family or any other commitment that's important to them in ways that allows them to have personal, mental, and physical wellbeing. Then, the last two were we value exploration in professional and personal development.
John Orr:
We value the teamwork and the interrelation of our roles as they relate to one another. We can't do our job without directly impacting another person's, and that teamwork between the departments is really critical to our success. So, for me, as we land that plane that might not have any wheels or wings or whatever, we're just running around on the tarmac with our parachute strapped to us, this is the one, it's like the glue, right? The dark matter of space, if you will, the piece that you can't see that keeps the work together. Allows us the freedom to live our values, push for progressive change in the sector, and to do it in a way that makes people want to come to work and take on this burden.
John Orr:
It's not easy work. It's not always fun work. There is conflict in it, and my team's good at embracing that, but I also want to make sure that they feel taken care of by the organization as well.
Tim Cynova:
John, such a packed conversation with such richness, really.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, your experience, your vulnerability today with this conversation. There's so much here, so much helpful stuff to share, and thanks for being on the podcast.
John Orr:
Yeah, this was great. Have me back anytime.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up, or five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time. Thanks for listening.
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White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism Series Intro (EP.54)
In this episode, co-hosts Tim Cynova and Lauren Ruffin introduce a new 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," where Tim interviews white men in positions of leadership whose companies are engaged in understanding how racism and oppression are at play in their organizations and the work they do.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Recorded
March 15, 2022
In this episode, co-hosts Tim Cynova and Lauren Ruffin introduce a new 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," where Tim interviews white men in positions of leadership whose companies are engaged in understanding how racism and oppression are at play in their organizations and the work they do.
Download the accompanying study guide.
Series guests include:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films. And find all the episodes here.
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Co-Hosts
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
LAUREN RUFFIN (she/her) is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems & organizations. She's into exploring how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice. As part of this work, she frequently participates in conversations on circular economies, social impact financing, solidarity movements, and innovative, non-extractive financing mechanisms. Lauren is a co-founder of CRUX, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). Lauren is currently the Head of Movement Building at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), where she focuses on amplifying the stories and activism of the YBCA community. Prior to joining YBCA, Lauren was co-CEO of Fractured Atlas, the largest association of independent artists in the United States. In 2017, she started Artist Campaign School, a new educational program that has trained 74 artists to run for political office to date. She has served on the governing board of Black Girls Code and Main Street Phoenix Cooperative, and on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. A podcast about, well, that. On this episode, I'm again joined by podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin. When I'm quite certain, she will ask me just what I was thinking when I set out to record an entire series of episodes with white guys in leadership roles whose companies are engaged in understanding how racism and oppression are at play in their organizations and the work they do. This is the preamble episode to that very series, White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-Racism.
Tim Cynova:
What follows are 12 episodes where I interview everyone from someone choreographing movement on military grade robots, to the guy who helped invent the cookie dough that goes into Ben and Jerry's iconic Cookie Dough Ice Cream, to a whole host of guys engaged in different and fascinating work. I talk with them and unpack how their professional work currently intersects with their personal work and journey towards understanding how racism and oppression are built into their organizations and how as white guys they're trying to address it. Let's get going.
Tim Cynova:
It's my pleasure to welcome back to the podcast someone with whom I don't think I've physically been in the same room to record for 54 episodes. If you're playing along at home, this is our 54th episode. Lauren Ruffin, welcome back to the podcast,
Lauren Ruffin:
Tim.
Tim Cynova:
Ah, It's so great to be in the same space.
Lauren Ruffin:
I know. Well, we haven't been in the same space in two years.
Tim Cynova:
That's true. Yeah.
Lauren Ruffin:
Two years, two months. Wow!
Tim Cynova:
So much has happened. It's so great to see you in 3D.
Lauren Ruffin:
It is. You're still tall. I'm still short.
Tim Cynova:
You've changed your hairstyle.
Lauren Ruffin:
I have so much less hair. You have the same amount of hair, which for a white guy is a blessing.
Tim Cynova:
But I got to see your like new sneakers. They're amazing.
Lauren Ruffin:
They're really great. I'm wearing some dope Converses right now.
Tim Cynova:
Things you miss when you're on Zoom. You just don't get to see the footwear.
Lauren Ruffin:
We should just start putting up on the desk. What are you wearing today on those feet?
Tim Cynova:
A split screen.
Lauren Ruffin:
Totally. I'm like really excited to talk to you about this series.
Tim Cynova:
This has been a long time coming. This has been long time brewing. It's really exciting that it's coming together in the episodes. They're starting to drop this week.
Lauren Ruffin:
You and I have long said that any sophisticated leader needs to have an understanding of anti-racism. You went out into the wild and managed to find 12 white guys who are kind of figuring it out and like at least being thoughtful about it, right?
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. It was really interesting to talk to 12 white guys who are each approaching this in different ways, but they're doing the personal work first. And then like, what does this mean? Is it through an anti-racism lens? Is it through a justice lens? What does this mean for them as white guys showing up in their organizations, some of the organizations these guys have founded and saying like, "Whoa, we need to reimagine. We need to rethink our policies, our practices, or the language that we use," and sitting with them in that struggle. What's worked?
Tim Cynova:
What's not? Where are they still challenged? The common theme was white guys, but like really different backgrounds and work. I mean, they're small nonprofits, large B corporations, handful of employees, lots of employees. A lot of different ways that people are showing up and also willing to talk about it on the record.
Lauren Ruffin:
I was wondering when you first told me about this and I do want to ask you how you came up with this idea. But when you first told me about it, I was like, I don't know if you're going to be able to find very many white guys who even if they're doing the work will talk about it openly because folks are so afraid to say like, "Hey, this isn't perfect," or I thought you would get a whole lot of like, "Everything's hunky dory."
Lauren Ruffin:
I'm glad that these conversations were so robust. But let's take it back. It's a little bit of a crazy idea like diving head first off of like Mount Kilimanjaro, I'm afraid of heights. It's like literally I would be terrified to have these conversations, I think. Well, maybe not terrified, but I am curious about the impetus.
Tim Cynova:
Several years ago, unbeknownst to me at the time, you sent in an application for me to attend the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit. I was fortunate enough to be able to go. It was that moment where I'm sitting in a room with 200 mainly white people, largely of men, and I was listening to panel after panel of people talking about like doing good by being good and how to create an organization where people can thrive. I'm like, wow! There's just a lot of white people and a lot of white guys in particular on these panels.
Tim Cynova:
And that was problematic in the space because it was a lot of white people who weren't recognizing their privilege when they talk about like the challenges I have of maintaining two country club memberships and making $2.5 million.
Lauren Ruffin:
How much golf can I fit in today?
Tim Cynova:
I'm sitting there and after like two days, it really started to get to me. I was taking notes. I was sitting with this tension of being in these spaces while coming from our organization where we were engaged in how racism and oppression is baked into the DNA of the organization. What do we do about it? And how as white people do we show up or not show up in the work? I sat on my notes for... I don't know. It was like eight months or so before I wrote the piece around why anti-racism work is a core leadership competency for in particular white men to be engaged in.
Tim Cynova:
But I start with like, what panel would I like to hear an all white guy group talk about? What would be a useful thing?
Lauren Ruffin:
Grateful Dead.
Tim Cynova:
Besides the Grateful Dead. I would really appreciate hearing an all white male panel talk about their journey toward understanding how racism and oppression is baked into the organizations that they run. And that sort of was the impetus for this where like, could I get enough white guys together to talk about something? I've never seen a panel of just white people, let alone white guys who are in these positions break it down for like, "Yeah, I have this privilege. I hold this power, and this is how I'm trying to change my organization." It was brewing well for like three years.
Tim Cynova:
That's how this all started to come together. And then I just started asking white guys and no one turned me down.
Lauren Ruffin:
I remember you came back from that conference pretty fired up. I was like, "Yes! We've radicalized Tim". That was the moment I was like, "Yeah, he's come over to our side."
Tim Cynova:
We were talking about the thing, but we weren't talking about the thing. These were organizations and these were people who were really well-meaning, wanted to create organizations where people could thrive, and we're just missing a giant piece of the equation and didn't know they were missing it. These are organizations I had studied, organizations I have visited about like, how do you actually create great places to work? I think on the second day, at the end of the day, they're like, "Let's talk about reflections on the day."
Tim Cynova:
I stood up. I about threw up. Seriously, I about threw up. There's like founder of Whole Foods and founder of The Container Store, like people that everyone knows in the room and no one knows me.
Lauren Ruffin:
I know you.
Tim Cynova:
Except for Lauren, yeah, who I was Slacking with at the time.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah.
Tim Cynova:
I stood up and I said something to the effect that, "I don't think this conscious capitalism movement is going to be effective unless it wrestles with its role in perpetuating racism and oppression." And then I sat down and I texted you. I said something like, "I don't think anyone's going to eat dinner with me tonight."
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, that is what you said.
Tim Cynova:
Let's move on to the next person and I'm like, I don't know what just happened there. But I walk out of the space into the lobby and I'm just standing there by myself. This person comes up to me and says something to the effect of like, "I really appreciated what you said." It turned out to be Jay Coen Gilbert who founded B Lab, before that founded AND1. That was a connection that we made. And then we talked a little bit afterwards, but it sort of went dormant.
Tim Cynova:
And then in May 2020 after George Floyd's murder, Jay and some of his colleagues in the B corp community emailed a bunch of white guys and said, "Let's get together to talk about this, to process this." And that was the start of White Men for Racial Justice. And then Jay, because of that connection at Conscious Capitalism, reached out to me. And then that led to this whole community of other white guys who are actually engaged in the work and who understand the power and privilege that they hold in their organization.
Lauren Ruffin:
That's really dope. I'm curious, you've got this network now. You're tapping the network for this series. What's the throughline?
Tim Cynova:
A lot of the guys talk about they're in the work, they're wrestling with the work, they're making mistakes. Nothing's perfect. A lot of them were pointing out. Look, our organization is engaged in this, but we're not perfect. We're trying stuff out here. Some of it's not working. Some of it's accidentally working. I mean, I was talking to an organization who uses inclusive hiring, which preceded their work.
Tim Cynova:
They would've defined their work that they're doing around belonging, but it was sort of this policy and practice that happened beforehand that now it's like, oh, actually that aligns with anti-racism work accidentally. Reframing like, how can we take this deeper? It's a lot of like, it's not perfect. Also, I'm wrestling with all the stuff that I'm now realizing has happened as a white guy in these rooms and how I'm showing up. I think a lot of humility and a lot of vulnerability that people were showing in the work that they're doing, which is why, again, this is all on the record.
Tim Cynova:
I mean, I told them clean up the interviews for like filler words and stuff. But more or less, what they said, it was going to get published. One person said something like, "I would be more comfortable if we were just chatting over a beer," but I thought also this is part of the work. This series is for other white guys in similar roles. Part of being on this journey is to sort of share what's working and what's not.
Lauren Ruffin:
I've been thinking a lot about truth and reconciliation and apology. Did anyone talk about feeling like they needed to apologize to staff, organization, colleagues, or do you think they sort of were able to move through getting into the work? Did they feel like they'd actively done harm to the point where they needed to apologize anywhere?
Tim Cynova:
I don't know if anyone in the interviews talked about that, but certainly these guys in the interview series, we've talked about that in other settings, where as you're wrestling with it, feelings of shame.
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh yeah.
Tim Cynova:
All of a sudden, I'm realizing the stuff that I had no idea, and then I'm looking back at decisions I made and that actually inflicted harm. And maybe those people don't work with me anymore, or how do I show up the next time? Working through that, it's been interesting to be a part of this White Men for Racial Justice community because it meets every Tuesday at like 8:00 PM Eastern Time. It's a weekly thing. Since I started regularly attending about a year or so ago, we've introduced two other cohorts, which has been an interesting dynamic to bring in new guys into it.
Tim Cynova:
How you prepared that group to then enter the other group that's been together and really digging into the work. They used the Seeing White Podcast series. That's the frame that we've been using with that group. But you can see people coming in and wrestling with like, "I'm here because my grandchild is black and I'm a white guy. I need to show up for them, or something happened in our company and I need a space to talk about this with other white guys. Because even if we have caucusing at work, there's power dynamics."
Tim Cynova:
You're always showing up as the CEO in any meeting, even if it's a caucus. Some of that got captured in the interviews. It's more like the longer themes that sort of come up again and again. How can you process that and how can you get beyond the shame that you might feel? And really what do you do about it in a way that's not what typical white guys do? It's like, all right, let's fix this thing. Yeah. But how do you sit with this comfort and just learn from it.
Lauren Ruffin:
Man, that's a lot. I'm curious about the cohort model. Do they remain with the sort of founding cohort, or do they stay there for a while and then split out on their own? How are you all thinking about this
Tim Cynova:
In Jay Coen Gilbert's interview, he talks about how this all came to be. He's like, "That first Zoom call, we had a hundred people." He's like, "My phone was blowing up with text messages. I can't get in," because he didn't realize he had the Zoom account that had a cap. All these white guys wanted to get in there. He talks about, "All right. It seems like there's some interest. Let's gather in two weeks. And between now and then, let's all listen to the Seeing White Podcast."
Lauren Ruffin:
Meanwhile, I'll I'll upgrade my Zoom account.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. Meanwhile, I'll upgrade the Zoom account. You listen to Seeing White. He said it just evolved organically where it was just white guys just said, "Yeah, let's show up again, and let's show up." By the time I joined, there were some rigorous curriculum development. There are a number of people who are in education. They built out this curriculum that really guides the conversation, the weekly conversation. The new cohort that comes in, they go through an eight week introductory where you work through the Seeing White Podcast and then are introduced to the group.
Tim Cynova:
And then they just become members of the group. And then once you've gone through this eight week series, some people opt out. They're like, "Yeah, that was interesting." And then others sign up for the thing. You can see it ebbs and it flows. Every Tuesday is like 40 to 50 white guys who are showing up. There's paid equity advisors, so there's usually two black equity advisors who hold the group accountable. They show up once a month to talk about what's going on, how white guys should be showing up, and to deepen that learning.
Lauren Ruffin:
That's really awesome. I'm really excited to listen to the rest of the series.
Tim Cynova:
It's been fun to relisten to it after recording it, both the themes and then just some really interesting things that came out of it. I was interviewing Ron Carucci and he talked about this exercise he uses when he works with groups, where if you're talking about racism, before you even get into the conversation, you write the 20 or 30 words that you can't say in the conversation. You can't say white fragility. You can't say white privilege. In the conversation, if you want to refer to white fragility or white privilege...
Lauren Ruffin:
You have to actually say the behavior.
Tim Cynova:
You have to explain what it is. He said it's just a disarming thing because people toss around these terms, critical race theory. You don't really understand what that means, but it might be triggering for people. What are we talking about here? How do we really understand what everyone's saying? There's little things like that that came up in the conversations. John Orr was really taking apart equity, equality, and justice to explain like inputs and outputs and systems and how that works.
Tim Cynova:
I think every one of the guys has a different take that I found really helpful. What are different angles and lenses that you can use to think about the work? And as a resource for other white guys, it's going to be unique. What mix works for me right now to help me go deeper in my understanding?
Lauren Ruffin:
That's really dope and the importance of language, right? Like just being intentional about how you use words. I t can be really powerful to actually instead of sort of looping things up into white fragility, you can say like, this person decided to detach from the conversation and essentially got up and walked out of the room.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, exactly. What is that thing?
Lauren Ruffin:
They took the thing that I said and said that they no longer wanted to engage with the work, but that's not what I was actually asking. It's a longhand. We do use shorthand too often. That's powerful. We did that with some of our interview questions. We used to say, describe diversity without using the word different.
Tim Cynova:
It was really interesting to take that lens. Jay Coen Gilbert shared an anecdote where he was in a room and someone was presenting to a bunch of white guys and was talking about earn versus unearned privilege. He said it was disarming in a way. All of a sudden, this group of white guys, you can see that the shoulders drop. There's multiple types of privilege. Rather than talking about white privilege, it's like, did you earn this or is this unearned and...
Lauren Ruffin:
You're just benefiting.
Tim Cynova:
You're just benefiting from it. Those are some of the things that... My hope is that as other white guys are listening to this series, they can find that oh, aha or it just really engages them in a different way. I'm excited for this to start rolling out and really excited that we had this chance to sit together in the same room and talk.
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh my goodness, I haven't been this happy to see somebody since I can't even remember. Maybe since I saw Beyonce on tour. You're my Beyonce, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
I thought it was Celine Dion.
Lauren Ruffin:
I do love Celine. But Beyonce was like... At that particular point in time in my life, which a very long time ago, I was really into it. I haven't seen Celine yet, because I think I'm going to be like one of those Michael Jackson fans who cries in faces. I don't want to be on camera. I don't want anyone to see it. I'm really nervous about Celine. You know when people get all sweaty and that they just faint?
Tim Cynova:
Yeah.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, I think that's going to be me. I always feel so bad for those people in those old grainy videos. I kept my cool with Beyonce mostly.
Tim Cynova:
I look forward to debriefing your Celine Dion concert going experience.
Lauren Ruffin:
Well, if it goes well, you'll here about it. If not, you'll never know I was there.
Tim Cynova:
I do feel like one thing I would love to be able to do is get you a private audience, if you and Celine could just like sit down.
Lauren Ruffin:
My heart just skipped a beat. There's one person listening here heard me breathe deeply into the microphone.
Tim Cynova:
Well, on that note.
Lauren Ruffin:
Listen to the series. It's going to be great.
Tim Cynova:
Lauren, as always.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, it's good to be back together.
Tim Cynova:
If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or a five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Re-Imagining the Role of the Art Center (EP.53)
What does it look like to co-create a future where everyone thrives? We explore re-imagining the role of the art center as a canvas and place to play and explore, and how to transform society by transforming organizations and the systems and structures that built and sustain them.
Recorded
April 27, 2021
Last Updated
January 13, 2021
This conversation was recorded as part of Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit that took place on April 27, 2021.
What does it look like to co-create a future where everyone thrives? We explore re-imagining the role of the art center as a canvas and place to play and explore, and how to transform society by transforming organizations and the systems and structures that built and sustain them.
Guest: Deborah Cullinan
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Guest
DEBORAH CULLINAN Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) CEO Deborah Cullinan is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the pivotal role artists and arts organizations can play in shaping our social and political landscape, and has spent years mobilizing communities through arts and culture. Deborah is committed to revolutionizing the role art centers play in public life and during her tenure at YBCA, she has launched several bold new programs, engagement strategies, and civic coalitions. Prior to joining YBCA in 2013, she was the Executive Director of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts. She is a co-founder of CultureBank, co-chair of the San Francisco Arts Alliance, Vice Chair of the Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy, and on the boards of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust and HumanMade. She is a Field Leader in Residence at Arizona State University’s National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation and a former Innovator in Residence at the Kauffman Foundation. She currently serves on Governor Gavin Newsom’s Jobs and Business Recovery Task Force.
Co-Hosts
LAUREN RUFFIN (she/her) is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems & organizations. She's into exploring how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice. As part of this work, she frequently participates in conversations on circular economies, social impact financing, solidarity movements, and innovative, non-extractive financing mechanisms. Lauren is a co-founder of CRUX, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). Lauren is currently the interim Chief Marketing Officer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), where she focuses on amplifying the stories and activism of the YBCA community. Prior to joining YBCA, Lauren was co-CEO of Fractured Atlas, the largest association of independent artists in the United States. In 2017, she started Artist Campaign School, a new educational program that has trained 74 artists to run for political office to date. She has served on the governing board of Black Girls Code and Main Street Phoenix Cooperative, and on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., a management consulting firm specializing in HR and human-centered organizational design. Whether it's through shared leadership explorations or alternative workplace arrangements, re-imagining recruitment and hiring processes to center equity and inclusion or decolonizing workplaces policies, practices, and programs, WSS is focused on helping companies co-create places where everyone can thrive. Tim is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator. He serves on the faculty of Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In August 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the COO and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made this commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Also, during a particularly slow summer, he bicycled 3,902 miles across the United States.
Transcript
Deborah Cullinan:
Transforming society, you can't do it if you haven't transformed the institutions and structures that built it the way it is. And you also can't do it if you aren't willing to change yourself and to give up, right? And so I feel like there's a lot of that over the course of the year of what it means to give up, to let go to, step aside, to move out of the way, has been really powerful. But again, we're not nowhere near all the way there yet, it's really the work ahead.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I’m Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Earlier this year, podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin and I produced Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit. The event took place online on Tuesday, April 27, and featured eight sessions, 25 amazing speakers, and covered a whole host of topics related to the ethical re-opening of workplaces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We raced to produce the Summit from start to finish in just three weeks as we felt the urgency and stress mounting as workplaces were in the midst of re-opening decisions. Several months on, we still feel the content is as necessary as ever, so we decided to release each of the sessions in podcast form.
In each of the eight sessions, you'll hear the conversations just as the Summit attendees did. As a reminder, in late April 2021, COVID vaccine distribution was just gaining speed and we had yet to begin hearing about the Delta variant. From that vantage point in time, it very much looked like by Fall 2021 things might be settling back into somewhat of a quote unquote normal routine. As I record this preamble in Fall 2021, that's not the case. We're now talking about break-through infections, booster shots, schools opening and closing again, hospital ICUs are packed in states across the U.S., and still how to safety gathering in indoors as the temperature again begins to drop with the change in seasons.
In the Ethical Re-Opening Summit's closing plenary -- Into the Future! -- Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by the amazing Deborah Cullinan. We discuss a whole host of things including, what does it look like to co-create a future where everyone thrives. So, let's jump over to the conversation…
Tim Cynova:
Hey everyone, I am Tim Cynova and welcome to our closing main stage. It's like we just started this summit and now we're at the closing main stage.
Lauren Ruffin:
It's wild.
Tim Cynova:
It is wild.
Lauren Ruffin:
What a day.
Tim Cynova:
What a day indeed. Well, in starting this session I'm Tim Cynova, I'm a White man with medium to short brown, messy hair. I have blue rectangular glasses and salt and pepper unshaven look. I'm wearing a black sweater that zips up with a blue dress shirt, blue tie, and I'm sitting in front of wood paneling. Lauren.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. And hey I'm Lauren, I'm still an openly Black person with brown skin, wearing a black sweatshirt, wearing a green hat. I'm in a room with a white door and a white dresser behind me and a quickly growing pandemic Lego village on top of the dresser.
Tim Cynova:
Nice. Well, and speaking about the pandemic, last year when the pandemic arrived and things began to shut down, you and I decided we should host a daily live stream show and just invite all of our friends to come onto the daily live stream, who happen to be fascinating and amazing people. And for five weeks, every day, we hosted that live stream and connected with many of you who are here, and many of the guests that are on this. And this sort of led to this summit. Lauren and I were talking about what we should do this year. We said, "You know what we did last year over five weeks, let's just do it all in one day." And we felt the world was beginning to open up quicker and quicker, we were like, "And we should do it really soon." And so that's why the summit came together with just over three weeks notice. So again, a huge thanks to all of you for being with us, a huge thanks to all our speakers and panelists from those 33 amazing guests last year on our morning show, we were pleased to spend time with Deborah Cullinan who has agreed to come back on and talk with us again-
Lauren Ruffin:
Brave soul.
Tim Cynova:
Brave soul to be back. Deborah is currently the CEO of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She is one of the nation's leading thinkers on the pivotal role of arts organizations can play in shaping our social and political landscape and has spent years mobilizing communities through arts and cultures. Prior to joining YBCA almost 10 years ago, she was the executive director of San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts. She's a co-founder of CultureBank, co-chair of the San Francisco Arts Alliance, vice chair of the Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy, on the boards of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust and HumanMade. I should have just posted this in the chat because it's an awesome long bio. I will post this in the chat. She's a field leader in residence at Arizona State University's National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation, a former innovator in residence at the Coffin Foundation. She currently serves on the governor's jobs and business recovery task force, and her passion for using art and creativity to shift culture has made her a sought after speaker at events and conferences around the world. And one of the reasons we are so excited that she is here today joining us. Deborah, welcome to the summit
Deborah Cullinan:
Thanks for having me and for reading that long bio.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. Tim I didn't know we were going to be that formal. It's always weird to realize your friends are kind of big shots.
Deborah Cullinan:
Yeah. I'm glad to be here.
Lauren Ruffin:
Cool. And how are you doing today?
Deborah Cullinan:
I'm doing pretty well. So I'm in San Francisco. The sky is blue. This is the land of the Ohlone Ramaytush people, and I am a white woman. My hair is brownish red, my eyes are blue. I've got some red lipstick on and I'm in a bluish-gray room with a painting behind me and a plant trying to get in as well. And the blue sky is what's making me feel good today.
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh, that's good. I was talking with someone yesterday who left the Bay Area for Atlanta, who reminded me of the orange skies that you all had out there, which to me was this... When I think of the pandemic there are a couple of moments, one of them is obviously the live stream as a bookend on one side. And then for me, the orange sky, because I was talking about coming to the Bay Area. It was like a middle point and now I feel like perhaps this is another transitional point, even though we're not at the end of the pandemic, but everything that happened to Bay Area over the last year has been pretty pivotal, I think, and transformative. How are you reflecting on that and holding all that right now?
Deborah Cullinan:
Yeah, I mean, your mentioning of the sky and my mentioning of the sky, it's complicated to have joy when the sky is blue for days on end, because what we really need is rain. And we know some of the cities in the Bay Area region are already putting folks on lower water use. We don't anticipate a good year ahead in terms of water, weather fires, drought and there's just something about living in that constancy that I think helps us to stay somewhere at the edge, just kind of constantly asking, why were we doing it that way and what is the tomorrow going to be? I remember a few years ago in the fire season when everything shut down and I just started to think about, this is the role of an art center now, to be a place with circulated air that can be safe for people. And so how do all of these conditions and things around us really affect the way we think about our institutions as responders and as resources?
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. And so this thing is named the Ethical Re-opening Summit. And we were in the green room talking about how grateful Tim and I are as co-CEOs of Fractured Atlas to not have to think a lot about reopening because we made the choice before the pandemic to go 100% remote. You did a weird thing, which was you declared YBCA open months ago. Can you talk a bit about that and what that means?
Deborah Cullinan:
For us, and it kind of picks up on the conversation that the three of us had at the beginning of the pandemic, it's really about not reopening, but re-imagining, and not returning, but regenerating. And so, as we, as an organization started to really think about what the future holds and what our dream state is, who do we really want to be when we get to the other side? It was not to return. And so our declaration was, we are open and we're doing open differently. So the idea was to manifest what it can feel like to turn a building inside out to serve a community that can't come inside, to work with artists to really capture this moment, all of it. The pain, the trauma, the injustice, and also the hope. And so it was very much about really putting a stake in the ground around the idea that we have to turn our spaces outwards. We have to think differently about what we're calling upon people to do when they engage with our organization. So it was the beginning of a journey and it's all one great big experiment. We're not actually urgent as I say, to reopen, we're much more urgent about what we can be and how we might be able to imagine and realize that not by taking the lead, but by following artists and community members who are really the best designers of our systems and structures anyway.
Tim Cynova:
From a practical process standpoint, what did that look like? How did you do that?
Deborah Cullinan:
Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of different things. Part of it is just in re-imagining the structure of YBCA so that we moved very far away from top-down curatorial silos to one big program and engage teams. We tried to think about all of the artists that we were working with and artists that we were working with before the pandemic and before shelter in place. And to ask them, what do you want to do? What are the stories you want to tell? What are the messages that you want to be able to provide to the public? And so taking a team that was very used to making exhibitions, producing performances and turning that team to the idea that the building, the facade, the campus around us is essentially a canvas, a place to play and also to emphasize not so much the product, but rather the process of art making.
And so you see like Caleb Duarte's piece, The Monument as Living Memory is a really good example of this because it had been dynamically evolving over the course of many, many months in deep collaboration with artists and creative collectives in the Bay Area, in order to not only interrogate what monuments mean to us, think about the role of street art, really engage a dialogue around that, but also to just be really responsive. To be able to not think so up-down, something goes up, it's static, it comes down, we go back to the same, but rather more like layers. When an artist comes and works with us and we put something on the wall, or on the building, or on the sidewalk, what is it like to not just go neutral? Put it up, take it down, go neutral.
What is that? And how do you actually instead make layers and create an environment where the process is what you're experiencing and where the inquiry is what people get to experience? So that's how it has evolved. I think as we move forward the environment that we hope to create and co-create, and work with our community to do is really a public square. A dynamic, ongoing, interactive kind of environment. So again, not so much about up-down exhibitions or a season of performances, but a dynamic environment that can be of service to the community.
Lauren Ruffin:
What's been the hardest about that re-imagining process? Is it the internal change of various staff members or your colleagues' risk tolerance? Is it just not being able to sort of see what's coming ahead because it hasn't been built yet and it doesn't exist anywhere, or is it something else that's sort of... What's been hardest?
Deborah Cullinan:
I mean, I think you're kind of getting to what I would say is hardest. I think that change is hard because of the uncertainty it provides. And so for me, I think if you don't know where you're going, it's really hard to trust the path. And if you came onto that path with a certain definition of the expertise and skills and values that you can bring to the table and you can't see how those things that you bring fit in and will help guide us there, it's really challenging. And so a big shout out to the YBCA team as you know, there've just been all kinds of just so much uncertainty, where are we going? And so really trying to create an environment where it's okay to try something, fail, iterate, correct, decide it was a terrible idea. But at the end of the day, we have to try. And so I think the hardest thing is to create conditions that make people feel valued and clear and safe in pursuit of something that is not yet known.
Tim Cynova:
What's one thing that you've tried over the past year where you were like, "Yeah, that was cool. I'm really glad that worked out." And what's one thing that did not go as planned? "Had we known that was going to end that way, we should have not done that."
Deborah Cullinan:
Oh, that's a really good question. I mean, because it's so fresh in my mind, I will say that the YBCA 100 Summit was just an incredibly grounding and inspiring experience for me to see the way that we could work with Crocs in particular to really test and play with environments and experience in the virtual space was really powerful. But maybe more for me, it was the feeling of together and of community that began to brew among the artists. This feeling that you say all these things. We want to be a place that shifts resource and power to artists. We want to put artists and community members in the lead. We believe that artists and community members are the best designers of their own future, but can we really do it? Are we really going to do it?
And to me just hearing and feeling the energy, I'm not saying we're there by any means, but I'm saying it's possible. And to know it's possible, it's so gratifying to me. So that's one side of it, right? But the other side of it is to say those things and strive to do those things means that you really are in it and you have to be willing to change, right? Transforming society, you can't do it if you haven't transformed the institutions and structures that built it the way it is. And you also can't do it if you aren't willing to change yourself and to give up, right? And so I feel like there's a lot of that over the course of the year of what it means to give up, to let go to, step aside, to move out of the way, has been really powerful.
But again, we're not nowhere near all the way there yet, it's really the work ahead. As far as things that maybe haven't gone well, what came to mind when you were asking the question is more about the role that YBCA has played specifically in San Francisco during the pandemic, as the co-chair of the San Francisco Arts Alliance. And just being in this community for such a long time, The instinct is to be of service, to really help, to raise our hands all the time. Like, "what can we do? What can we do?" And I think that maybe what we didn't understand is that sometimes even raising the hand isn't necessarily the right thing to do as a White led organization, as an organization that is relatively big and depending on how you look at it. And so for me, it's much more about how do we constantly interrogate and understand our right place in the world?
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. And I am really curious about that piece because you all have stepped into some stuff that's not purely creative. I mean, you're getting into basic income and really so first responder type things and almost quasi government type things. How are you holding that? When you're raising your hand for that sort of thing, how does that feel stepping into those spaces that are relatively new for the infrastructure that's been built with YBCA?
Deborah Cullinan:
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot in that question, right? There's just, how do you build capacity for new lines of business and new pathways for an organization that operated in a certain way? But for us as you know, the transformation has been pretty thorough and there are three focus areas for YBCA. One is YBCA create, one is YBCA champion, one is YBCA invest. And we look at all three of these things as essential together. You can't do one, you've got to do all three because they're really for us a sort of ecosystem development set. It's about building an ecosystem of artists who are working to advance health and wellbeing in their communities, artists who are committed to cultural equity and racial justice. And how do we build the capacity?
How do we change the policy? How do we create new kinds of curatorial and program structures that are much more inclusive that are driven by artists that are not top-down? And then how do we invest differently? How do we think about economic security in our sector? How do we address just what is wrong with it? So that collection of things makes all of this makes sense. We have to do all three of these things. In terms of the guaranteed income program and some of the programs that we've been doing in collaboration with city government, it's just tough. When you use public dollars, there are all kinds of things that you have to consider that you wouldn't have to consider if you're operating with private money. And I also think that it reveals large amounts of public dollars going to YBCA, even if all of those dollars are going to go back out into the community, it's still wrong, right?
That the money goes to this one organization. And part of the reason why we're driven to do it is to test and understand better ways of approaching it. To build knowledge so that we can shift policy around how we fund artists and community-based arts organizations like those that have been doing the work for decades, and haven't been funded. So it's putting yourself out there, right? But it's also a commitment to trying to understand and interrogate and even prove that some things are actually not a good idea. And so even with the guaranteed income, I think there's just a ton to learn there about what is good about that and what is not good about that, and what can we learn as a field about the right way to think about providing a floor for artists and creative workers.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. And is a program like that a springboard that ultimately helps... Are there particular points in a creative person's life where you can inject that sort of capital into that, that becomes a springboard to middle-class 10 or 15 years later? I mean, that's the durational sort of data that I'm really interested in with that program.
Deborah Cullinan:
Right. And you're sort of revealing one of the challenges with it, which is it's pilot, it's a limited amount of dollars. We would have preferred to provide this guaranteed income for fewer artists for a longer period of time not because we wanted only to support fewer artists obviously, but more because we wanted to gather as much information as we could. And so that kind of durational, we need to be able to understand things and we need the time to understand things. Otherwise, we keep kind of creating reactive policy that has such detrimental effect for so long, way longer than that 15 years that you're talking about, we're talking about hundreds of years, right? And so to me, it feels like we just underestimate how important it is to learn.
Tim Cynova:
There's a question here that feels related to what we've been talking about. In terms of new models and the changes you've made this year due to the pandemic, what specific changes have you made you wish to keep and what old models are you happy to get rid of?
Lauren Ruffin:
That's dangerously close to the suitcase question.
Deborah Cullinan:
Well, it's a simple question.
Tim Cynova:
I know. You need to parse it. You need to hold the things that you're going to say for the suitcase question until later.
Lauren Ruffin:
I'll go big on the suitcase question.
Deborah Cullinan:
Yeah, we could spend all the time on that. Coming into the pandemic, we had already been undertaking a real transformational effort at YBCA and all I can say about it for us, and this is for our organization, all I can say about it is it wasn't bold enough. And it wasn't fast enough. It wasn't bold enough. For us, the right thing is as much change as possible, right? And so I know that's not a really specific answer to the question, but we are just well situated just because we have a really amazing board that's open to this kind of inquiry, because the team is so dynamic and powerful that we have the opportunity to explore the very edges, to toss as much of it out as possible. And again, back to the piece about learning, so we can learn. But I'm not saying that everyone should throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm just saying for us, it feels right to try to do as much of that as we can.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. And you've got a pretty high risk tolerance as a leader.
Deborah Cullinan:
You think?
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, for sure.
Deborah Cullinan:
I don't know. I mean, it's just like when you go... We all have been through so much and I just don't know what else we're supposed to do, but try. And the worst that can happen is that we fail, to me what would be much worse is not trying.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. No, I'm with you on that and I think there's a particular sense of urgency over the last year that is important to acknowledge that we really have to be bold and go big to not go back to where it was, but it really wasn't working for most people. And the data bears that out. I think our emotions and our feelings and our grief bears that out, but yeah, I really appreciate that.
Tim Cynova:
We should say for the people who have heard the suitcase question, and we just thought it as a cliffhanger, we're going to close our interview, which I guess is another cliffhanger. But the question that Deborah asked us during our live stream last year and we thought, "Well, if she's back on the show, she's back at the summit, so let's ask her it." And so when we get to that, you'll understand what the question is and why we are sort of, I guess, threading the needle not to answer the question before we ask the question.
Lauren Ruffin:
Tim, did you have a question? I can talk to Deborah all day, but I want to make sure-
Tim Cynova:
It sounded like I had a question the way I ended that sentence, but no, I was going to you to bounce back in.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. I want to dig into some of the artists who've inspired you over the last year. I was part of the 100, that was so hopeful and so amazing. But what else are you seeing that you think points the way to a better future?
Deborah Cullinan:
I think about artists that we've been working with in West Oakland and in our Artist-Led Giving Circle, Hassan Rashid, Fay Darmawi, these are people who fundamentally understand shared future and interdependence. And it bears out in the work, in Hussein's photography, and it bears out. And so for me, it's been this kind of collective inspiration, the story of the Artist-Led Giving Circle is a powerful one, right? Because we were working with a group of artists from different parts of the country, including the Bay Area. And we were talking about investment and preparing for the SOCAP, the Social Capital Markets conference and thinking about how these artists would pitch their work in the context of a social impact investment conversation. And the question arose around well, what would happen if one of us was funded, if one of us got investment?
And the immediate answer was, "Oh, well, we'd all be funded." And that applies not only to the way the artists that we're working with might be thinking about financial resource, but also about resource in general and just how we work together and how we can together, better steward the assets that we have. I mentioned Cece Carpio whose work is on the window of YBCA on Mission Street. People like Cece and others who really are thinking about how to Chronicle the time, which is so important, but also unearth the history. And to my mind, that's where we need to be going, is we have to see where we've been and what we've done in order to stand in a present moment with the ability to imagine a better future. And these artists are really willing to do that work.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. I'm really curious about how we're making sense of this period of time in real time and how we're centering creators of color. And we know that in the Bay Area Latinx communities have been hit the hardest around the country, Black communities have been hit really hard by the virus and having a platform for artists of color to be able to tell their stories contemporaneously, this feels like it's so important. And it's the only way to me that we're going to come out of this with any sort of headiness about how it happened, so that we don't get back to the thing that caused it. And I do think that a number of the artists you're working with are doing a really good job with that documentation, which to me is critical. And it gets lost in times when everything's happening so fast. And there's not really a question there, but it's more of a wondering, how are we holding all these things at the same time?
Deborah Cullinan:
Well, and it just makes me think of the YBCA 10, the group of 10 artists who are working with us over the next year, at least. For me, what I come to is, what does it mean that our structures and systems have actually done the opposite of creating the conditions for really unleashing creativity, for really making it possible for artists and creative people of all kinds to do the work? It's such a trip when you really think about that. That we've actually created structures that stifle that either from an economic security perspective or from the way we approach and transact with artists rather than build deep relationships with them. So again, not a question either, but just what was coming to mind when you were talking and I just feel hopeful that we better understand now how important creativity at its maximum is to us as a society, and that we can just hold on to that. Don't forget that.
Tim Cynova:
I will follow up your two profound statements that weren't questions with a question. So Deborah, unless I pulled an outdated bio, is it you're on the governor's jobs and business recovery task force? That's currently one of the things you're doing?
Deborah Cullinan:
I was indeed on his jobs and business recovery task force but the whole thing came to an end. So I need to update my bio, but I did serve on that along with Mayor Breed's economic recovery task force here in San Francisco. And I'll tell you that was a trip with Governor Newsom's task force, because I was the only arts person of, I don't know exactly what the total amount of people was, but somewhere between 100 and 150 people. And it was still a lot of focus on the superstars in the State of California, a lot of folks in the tech sector and people leading really large organizations. And so it was a really kind of fun anomalous place to be. And to the stuff that we've been talking about here, it was not difficult to capture our governor's attention around the incredibly essential role that artists and arts organizations and creative workers in California play. And the reason it was not difficult is because we all had hit a wall. It was a terrible spot, racial injustice, systemic violence, wildfires. We can't get people to wear their masks. People won't trust to take the vaccine. Hitting a wall somehow opened hearts and minds to what's possible.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. I want to take a hard left turn because I'm thinking a lot about the advocacy work that you all have been doing or you have done historically.
California's passed some really interesting laws in the last year that have impacted the gig workers who we know are disproportionately artists and people of color. What's happening there now? Because there was a lot of nervousness around some of these laws of how it was going to impact the nonprofit sector, how it was going to impact 1099 folks who... What's happening there and where does YBCA see its role in plugging into these policy and advocacy conversations? Has it changed since the pandemic or does it remains the same?
Deborah Cullinan:
I think we've always played a really active role of thinking, not only about legislation and public policy advocacy, but also just championing the role, the arts play in other sectors. And so I think it's very deeply rooted and very important to what we do because we're trying to raise awareness and build, grow the demand for artists and arts organizations. I think that in particular, AB-5 and legislation that has been quite controversial as it relates to contract workers and other gig related workers. This kind of goes to this whole thing of we get really reactive and we develop and pass legislation that is not entirely thoughtful. And again, it's top-down instead of bottom-up. Wouldn't it make sense to maybe communicate with the people that are going to be affected most, which would be the workers themselves? But the good news on that is that there's been a lot of advocacy and that has resulted in edits to the legislation. So it's moving in the right direction. And the other piece that's good about it is it did raise awareness in general about the state of those workers who are contracting gigging 1099-ing. And how many of them there are in addition to the fact that you could argue that artists were the first gig workers.
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh, yeah. That's where it comes from, right?
Deborah Cullinan:
Yep. Yeah, and I think there's just a lot of opportunity right now to think not only about like art related policy, but how art and artists are integrated into policy. And I think there's some really exciting opportunities there as well. Not only at the state level, but federal.
Tim Cynova:
Well speaking about innovating, what does an innovator in residence at the Kauffmann Foundation do? What did that experience look like?
Deborah Cullinan:
That was awesome. There were seven of us and we were inside of the entrepreneurship program and our job was to think up and dream up and test out big, hairy ideas and also be a bit disruptive inside of the foundation. And I was the arts person. I really like it when it's not just all of us arts people, but I was working with folks who were on some other level when it comes to social finance, really thinking differently about law, running a whole new way of training young people towards work in the tech sector. So as usual, it was about really helping everyone think about how you integrate the arts into what we all do. And I got to spend a lot of time in Kansas City, which I came to love, and I got to know the arts ecosystem there, which was really inspiring.
Lauren Ruffin:
And lots of good barbecue.
Deborah Cullinan:
That is right. Lots of good barbecue. And I tried to find barbecue that was named after a woman, but I have yet. So if anyone... Tom's barbecue, Bob's barbecue. I'm not coming up with any of the actual real names right now, but yeah, it became of interest to me to see if there was any barbecue in Kansas City or restaurant that was named after a woman. And I don't know. So if anyone knows, tell me.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, interesting. I'm going to do some research on that. But you brought up capital and I think one of the... I spent some time thinking about how money moves into and out of various ecosystems. I don't want to talk about an NFTs or blockchain or Bitcoin, but I feel like what want to say is over the last couple of months, and San Francisco feels like it's sort of ground zero for this conversation about revenue generation and how we can maybe modernize how capital flows, because it really hasn't changed much in 400 years. It's the same basic sort of method of transfer. I'm going to have to talk about NFTs.
Deborah Cullinan:
Oh, no, I knew this was coming.
Lauren Ruffin:
Well, I think the bigger thing is when we're talking about these new technologies and new ways of transferring wealth, there becomes an opportunity to fundamentally reshift workers' relationship to their labor and how we see them, or don't see them as commodities in the marketplace. And I know that you all are right there thinking through all this stuff and are talking to companies who are thinking through this stuff like, what should we be paying attention to over the next couple months? Because cryptocurrency is not mature, blockchain is not mature yet, but what should we be looking at as leaders as workers, and as-
Deborah Cullinan:
I mean, I would want you to answer that question.
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh God. Well, if I had the answer, I would've just said it. It would have been a comment, not a question.
Deborah Cullinan:
Go easy. I mean, for me, in terms of what we should be looking for, my brain goes to what's the system? Instead of what's the flashy thing, what are we striving for? So it's like looking for the conversations that are about equity in these emerging potential marketplaces. And I think your question about our relationship to our labor is one of the biggest questions of our time. What is our relationship to our own personal labor and why we work? And then what is our relationship to our workers? Lauren, we've talked about this. It's just really stuck to me that the way we've set it up, it ends up being that our financial structures in the arts are de-stabilizing to the community that we exist to support and to celebrate and to share the artists.
And so if you really break that down and if you had a magic wand and you could just be like, Okay, so let's just look at this. We've got lots of money. We've got lots of institutions, small, medium, large, we've got a ton of beautiful artists working all across the country. How would we reshift this shift so that it goes in the right direction? Eric Tang from Cal Shakes who is also exploring what it is like to create a floor for Cal Shakes artists, he articulated it really well. He's like, "If our artists, our core community, is only stable when we hire them or cast them, hire them to design, cast them or whatever. And then they're just unstable until we come back around. What's the point?" And so I think this idea of we're only as stable as our core community.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. Tim is time for the suitcase question?
Tim Cynova:
I think it is time for the suitcase questions. We have five minutes then we're landing the plane, and have a little wrap up there, so go with it Lauren.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. So Deborah, I'm going to be a real asshole and read back how we got to the suitcase question last year. At the time you were reading Arundhati Roy's Pandemic is a Portal, and you said what she's talking about, at least the way I read it is that this is a portal we have to move through and that we have a choice. We can either move through it really heavily with our baggage. We can bring the racism, we can bring the avarice, we can bring the trauma, we can bring it all with us and we can trudge and fight and try so hard to not move through it. Or we can move through it lightly with very little. And if we do that, we can change everything. Which is beautiful. Tim and I somehow took that beautiful statement and we drilled it down in our ham-fisted way into the suitcase question. Which is, similar to what Kate had in the chat, personally, professionally, you've been traveling through your entire life with stuff. What's one thing that you had in your suitcase before the pandemic, that's never going back in, and what's a new thing that you're going to put in for the rest of your life?
Deborah Cullinan:
You even kind of prepared me for this and I find myself stumped, but let me give it a whirl. Yeah, I feel like I want to leave behind as much of this sort of top-down as we can so that we can all understand our ability to work together, to imagine something like we're in it. And I think what I would bring with me, I would still bring, as I said back then we leave behind our lack of imagination and we bring with us our collective ability to imagine something so powerful and equitable and good, why not? So leave the lack of imagination and the fear behind and bring the imagination forward. I think I'll end it there.
Tim Cynova:
It's terrific. And next year we'll ask you the same question.
Deborah Cullinan:
I'm going to be a little bit ready next year.
Tim Cynova:
Deborah, thank you so much for being with us for this closing session at the summit. It's always wonderful to spend time with you and really appreciate you sharing your time, your wisdom with us during the summit.
Deborah Cullinan:
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I would spend all the time that I could in the world with the two of you.
Lauren Ruffin:
No same.
Tim Cynova:
Cool. Yes. All right, we'll see you next hour. Anyhow, thank you.
Deborah Cullinan:
Take care.
Tim Cynova:
Well, and with that, somehow we are at the end of the Ethical Reopening Summit. It feels like really that we just got started.
Lauren Ruffin:
That was a whirlwind.
Tim Cynova:
It was a whirlwind. Thank you so much to each of you who have been here with us for it. Thanks for incredible eight sessions, eight conversations to our speakers, our panelists, for the engaging chats and questions that have been populating through the platform. If you really miss us, we're excited to announce that we're launching two new online courses in the coming months. The first is a 10 module called Hire With Confidence. The second is a five module course that Laura and I are teaching called Shared Leadership and Action. You can find more about those courses on the Work Shouldn't Suck website. Lauren, it is amazing that this all came together and I sincerely thank you so much for helping make this a reality. And-
Lauren Ruffin:
Not really. You're the best person to do a group project with because you just run with it. I can't even keep up. Diane Ragsdale's still awake? What is it? 11 o'clock there? But no, this was just really dope. It was one of the most beautiful things about doing digital events is we get to be social while distance, we get to be intimate while we're far away. And it's really great to spend time talking about just a better way of living and a better way of being human together as we're all sort of, or most of us are really working to make the world a little bit more hospitable for folks. So this was dope Tim, and thanks for the idea and the opportunity.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. And with that, I guess we're going to close and have to end the broadcast.
Lauren Ruffin:
I guess we are. See you all later.
Tim Cynova:
And more thanks. Take care, everyone.
Find more about the Ethnical Re-Opening Summit, including speaker bios and session recaps at work shouldn’t suck dot c-o backslash ethical hyphen reopening hyphen summit hyphen 2021.
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Alternate Power and Decision Making Models (EP.52)
There are a multitude of ways to share power, decision making, and leadership in organizations. In this episode, Aja Couchois Duncan, Hop Hopkins, Lauren Ruffin, and Jason Wiener explore several, as well as discuss what companies should keep in mind as they consider different ways of participatory leadership.
Recorded
April 27, 2021
Last Updated
December 27, 2021
This conversation was recorded as part of Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit that took place on April 27, 2021.
There are a multitude of ways to share power, decision making, and leadership in organizations. In this episode, Aja Couchois Duncan, Hop Hopkins, Lauren Ruffin, and Jason Wiener explore several, as well as discuss what companies should keep in mind as they consider different ways of participatory leadership.
Resources mentioned during session:
“Racism Is Killing the Planet” by Hop Hopkins
Solidarity Not Charity - Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy
Sustainable Economies Law Center’s Nonprofit Democracy Network
Guests: Aja Couchois Duncan, Hop Hopkins, Jason Wiener
Host: Lauren Ruffin
Guests
AJA COUCHOIS DUNCAN is a leadership coach, team engagement and strategic planning graphic facilitator and organizational development consultant of Ojibwe, French and Scottish descent. A Senior Consultant with Change Elemental, Aja has worked for almost 20 years in the areas of education, leadership and equity. Working with a broad range of clients from public and private universities, nonprofit organizations, national policy advocates, statewide arts organizations, to small businesses—she provides organizational capacity building expertise through needs assessments, program and/or strategy design and delivery, group facilitation, strategic communications and ROI/impact analysis. Aja has a strong background in diversity and social justice work, having provided diversity education, disparate impact analysis, diversity program evaluation and macro-level recommendations to improve equity and thus workplace climate and organizational performance. For nearly a decade, Aja was an active member of the Native American Health Alliance, an organization composed of University of California, San Francisco students, staff and faculty of Native descent working together to promote cultural understanding and an awareness of the health disparities affecting Native American/Alaskan Native peoples. With a small group of Native University of California staff, she created a development program designed to increase skills and promotional opportunities for employees of Native descent across the university system. She has led workshops for Native adults and youth to promote cultural values and identity through artistic expression. Previous professional roles have included leading creative writing workshops for under-served youth, working in the electrical and construction trades, serving as a meeting/conference planner, and leading nature programs in a state park. Aja is a certified co-active coach (CPCC) and holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing from San Francisco State University and a Master of Arts (MA) in policy, organization and leadership studies from Stanford University, where she is a member of the Stanford Native American Alumni Association. A writer and sometimes visual artist, Aja is interested in connecting the often disparate realities of spirit and mater, flora and fauna. When not at Change Elemental, you can find Aja writing or drawing. She also enjoys running in the hills with her dog, yoga and a daily meditation practice which begins with an expression of gratitude to her ancestors and ends with an enthusiastic shout out to the extraordinary miracle of her toes.
HOP HOPKINS is Director of Organizational Transformation at the Sierra Club, where he works to ensure that Sierra Club campaigns and programs protect those most affected by climate change and environmental degradation and promote economic justice. Hop was also a certified Arborist, a Master Gardener and has earned a Permaculture Design Certificate. He has been a Grassroots Environmental Justice Community Organizer in Seattle, WA, Portland, OR and Los Angeles, CA. Born in Dallas, Texas, he received his BA from New College of California as a graduate in the Culture Ecology & Sustainable Communities program with a focus in natural building. He has served on the boards of the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, Western States Center and People’s College of Law. Presently, Hop sits on the Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s Leadership Board, is earning his Master’s in Urban Sustainability and is the Climate Justice Fellow at Antioch University, Los Angeles. He also participated in the Marshall Ganz Organizing Program at the Harvard University Kennedy School. Alongside his wife of eighteen years, co-founded Panther Ridge Farm located just outside of Los Angeles. Collectively they homeschool their daughters and steward a quarter of an acre of land inhabited by their pet Australian shepherds, chickens, honey bees, fruit trees and multiple compost piles.
JASON WIENER enjoys the challenge of creatively designing legal and business solutions to persistent social and environmental challenges. Jason comes to this work with a wide range of experience as an entrepreneur, litigator, activist, organizer and worker-owner. With more than a dozen years of experience as an attorney – including several years in BigLaw litigation, and as a labor lawyer – Jason’s range of expertise and experience brings an innovative approach to solving client issues. Jason has walked in the shoes of his clients, as a social entrepreneur in his own right, on the board of non-profits, cooperatives and corporations. Jason has served on executive strategy, human resources, finance and other management level teams. Jason has been a thought, do and practice leader in the cooperative, employee ownership, impact finance and capital, and teal lawyering movements. Jason’s client work and public speaking have charted a new and grander course for the potential of democratized economic structures to re-calibrate the hazardous course set by “business as usual.” Jason has published more than six scholarly law review articles on international, human rights and renewable energy topics and speaks regularly about worker-owned and cooperative business model, non-extractive finance, the future of work, the contemporary and teal practice of law, distributed solar policy and sharing economy legal issues. Jason is an adjunct professor in Colorado State University’s Global Sustainability and Social Enterprise program, where he teaches an MBA course on business law and ethics. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Colorado Law School’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic. His hobbies include mountain biking, yoga, hiking, running, walking his two dogs, coffee, cooking and traveling, and raising his two young children with his amazing wife, Meghan.
Host
LAUREN RUFFIN (she/her) is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems & organizations. She's into exploring how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice. As part of this work, she frequently participates in conversations on circular economies, social impact financing, solidarity movements, and innovative, non-extractive financing mechanisms. Lauren is a co-founder of CRUX, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). Lauren is currently the interim Chief Marketing Officer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), where she focuses on amplifying the stories and activism of the YBCA community. Prior to joining YBCA, Lauren was co-CEO of Fractured Atlas, the largest association of independent artists in the United States. In 2017, she started Artist Campaign School, a new educational program that has trained 74 artists to run for political office to date. She has served on the governing board of Black Girls Code and Main Street Phoenix Cooperative, and on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.
Transcript
Hop Hopkins:
This society doesn't teach us how to be participatory. Even in our own families. All the institutions that we've come through by the time you get to be 20, 21, and you're going to get your first job, you are ill prepared to do anything that's participatory for the most of us. Some of us have been benefited from having been homeschooled or alternative different exposures to different spiritual practices.
But the majority of people are not even... I mean, if you think about an athlete, it's not even our muscles have atrophied, to atrophy, you actually have to have the muscle present first. Most of us don't even have not one calorie towards what we're trying to do right now. So I would say before you would think about going to resource, get clear on what your organization's trying to do and why you're trying to do it.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I’m Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Earlier this year, podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin and I produced Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit. The event took place online on Tuesday, April 27, and featured eight sessions, 25 amazing speakers, and covered a whole host of topics related to the ethical re-opening of workplaces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We raced to produce the Summit from start to finish in just three weeks as we felt the urgency and stress mounting as workplaces were in the midst of re-opening decisions. Several months on, we still feel the content is as necessary as ever, so we decided to release each of the sessions in podcast form.
In each of the eight sessions, you'll hear the conversations just as the Summit attendees did. As a reminder, in late April 2021, COVID vaccine distribution was just gaining speed and we had yet to begin hearing about the Delta variant. From that vantage point in time, it very much looked like by Fall 2021 things might be settling back into somewhat of a quote unquote normal routine. As I record this preamble in Fall 2021, that's not the case. We're now talking about break-through infections, booster shots, schools opening and closing again, hospital ICUs are packed in states across the U.S., and still how to safety gathering in indoors as the temperature again begins to drop with the change in seasons.
In this session: Alternate Power & Decision Making Models, the panel discusses ways to share power, decision making, and ownership in organization. Panelists include Aja Couchois Duncan, Hop Hopkins, and Jason Wiener. And podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin kicks off things off and moderates the discussion. So, over to you Lauren...
Oh! A quick note about the audio quality in a few sections of this episode. You’ll notice in a place or two that the audio quality and clarity is, let's just say, less than ideal.
The source file that came from the summit platform included these glitches. So, while we did our best to clean them up in post-production, we couldn't fix them all. That said, this is a terrific conversation -- audio glitches and all. Apologies for the added adventures in audio quality and we hope you enjoy the episode.
Lauren Ruffin:
Okay. Well, let's get started. Hey folks, I'm Lauren Ruffin. I use the she series of pronouns. I'm a brown skin black woman with short hair and wearing a green hat and a black shirt. And I'm in a room with a white door in a white dresser and behind me, and on top of the dresser is, oh, a laptop, which shouldn't be there. A bunch of books, the plant and my pandemic village. It's coming together slowly. I'm really excited to be here to kick off this conversation on alternate power and decision making models. As many of you know, Fractured Atlas had share non-hierarchical leadership team for about three years now. We've learned a lot about how we're seeing power throughout the organization.
We tend to get a lot of questions around how we make decisions. Initially we were a four person leadership team. Now we're a two person leadership team, and it's good to be in community with folks who I know are living and thinking about this stuff deeply all the time, similar to the way that we've been doing at Fractured Atlas. And so with that, I'll hand it over to my fellow conversationalists here. We've got Jason Wiener who is an attorney based in Boulder, Colorado, doing a lot of work in the cooperative space around governance, around setting up cooperatives nationally.
Hop Hopkins these with the Sierra Club as their director of organizational transformation, and Aja Duncan, who we just learned as in rural Orange County, California and works with Change Elemental as a coach and strategist. Welcome. And I'll turn it over to y'all for some intros. I gave brief bullet points, but of course want to know what you're thinking about. And anything you want to share in the space as we kick this conversation off. Jason, I'll pick on you because I know you best.
Jason Wiener:
Thanks Lauren. Jason Wiener, he, him, his pronouns. I'm coming to you from Boulder, Colorado on unseeded Arapaho territory. I'm in my living room. You might hear the clickety clack of my dog in the background. It's a fairly bright room behind me. Not much to set apart the white walls, tan skin, a white man short haircut, and some scruff coming in on the face with a gray colored polo shirt. It's wonderful to be with you all. I'm excited to have a conversation about how we show up to work and organizations and acknowledge power structures that don't serve us, how we live into a more humane and people-centric and anti-oppressive arrangements that are healthier and can help us to get past the trauma of prior teams and organizations and families in a way that is sustainable. Thanks. And I'll pass it to Aja.
Aja Couchois Duncan:
Okay. Hi, my name is Aja Couchois Duncan. I'm mixed race [inaudible 00:03:15]. My people come from [inaudible 00:03:17], which is a great lakes area, Upper Peninsula, Michigan, Canada, waterways and Scotland and France. And I'm cisgender, quire, woman, person human. And I live on the stolen ancestral lands of the coastal Milwaukee people in rural west Marin and work with Change Elemental and really excited for this conversation and appreciate the opportunity. And my dog may bark wildly because he's outside and there's squirrels out there. And I'll turn it over to the Hop.
Hop Hopkins:
Yo, yo, yo, what's up everybody. My name's hop Hopkins. I'm the director of Organizational Transformation, as Lauren said. My pronouns are he, him, his. I'm calling in from occupied and unseated Tonga too much territory in Southern California, just at the base of what is now known as the San Gabriel foothills. Been at the Sierra Club for six years in a number of different roles. I am a middle-aged black man wearing a brown cowboy hat and what's that? Earth tone plaid shirt. I'm in a corner of my garage with some climbing gear and my printer to my left and to my right.
And I'm thinking about how do you take 128 year old organization that has an immense amount of power within the U.S social movement infrastructure and turn it into something that it has not been before, which is a more democratic participatory place where transparency is the rule of the day. Decisions are shared across not just in hierarchical relationships, but across expertise and do this all at the time when the organization is making a shift to try to become a more justice effort organization, [inaudible 00:05:19] racist founding and move to an anti analysis in a way it does and addresses it's environmental climate check. Some one said I was muted. Is that true?
Lauren Ruffin:
No.
Hop Hopkins:
Did [inaudible 00:05:36] here me?
Lauren Ruffin:
You're fine on our end.
Hop Hopkins:
Okay.
Lauren Ruffin:
But if you're having a hard time with audio, feel free to refresh [inaudible 00:05:43]. Hop, that's a great way to kick us off because you just asked the central question, which is what we're all thinking about. Aja, I do want to give you a chance to give an audio description just for folks who might be listening on podcast or just might need some help with that.
Aja Couchois Duncan:
Yeah. Hi everyone. I'm not used to that, so I missed it right away. I am a middle aged woman with brown hair, today in [inaudible 00:06:11] ranges from yellow to pink, depending on the day, and then my role and my body's pretty brown. And I'm wearing my politician worthy the red shirt in front of some art. Some of it is mine, some of it isn't. And yeah, thank you.
Lauren Ruffin:
Amazing. So Hop, you really cut right to the meat of what we're all trying to figure out. And I'm curious, you said, how do you turn around the ship that's been around for 128 years? How do you transform the way power happens? How would you answer your own question? What are your... because everyone in this group is at sort of different stages, which is one of the things I love about this organizational transformation work. What are you thinking right now? Because Sierra Club's been really thinking about this and engaging with it for, what we say about a year ish?
Hop Hopkins:
Well, we've been about, I think, we've really been about the talk is about the last 17 years and we really started implementing instructional change over the last three to five years. And just recently within the last year, it's been about within the last year, we dissolved our previous executive team and went to a transitional interim executive steering committee, which I'm on, which is majority BiPAP, majority women. And it's not necessarily based on hierarchical position in the organization. So yeah, we've been thinking about it for a minute.
I mean, some would say we've been on this journey for about 30 years slowly. And to your question, how does it happen? Well, it happens too fast, too slow, not real enough. If anyone's familiar with the bridges model, there are different people in different places in terms of the wheel of change and accepting. Some people are in the old space, some people in the neutral zone, some people are in the new beginnings and it's really hard. I mean, it's sort of be real. We're 128 year old organization. We have one chapter in every state at least, and California, for example, was our very last state. So it has that big 10 to 12 chapters nationally.
[inaudible 00:08:24] Puerto Rico we have chapter. So when I try to explain this to folks, we have a universe at about nine to 10,000 people on a day-to-day basis that we're involved in communication with. And our base right now is just under four million people. And when you think about a base of four million people and an active body of people you're engaging with on a day-to-day or weekly basis, that for me and people represents a body of people that's larger than 22 of our states in the union. So it's a pretty significant infrastructure that you're trying to navigate with a number of different forms of organization.
We have groups in the groups have... So we have chapters in the chapters, we have groups that are geographically based within the state. If placement is a large state with disperse populations. And then we have networks that are national, that are composed of members from some of those groups, it didn't work on things. And so it's a very multilayered organizational infrastructure and they're different people at different places inside the organization. Most people would say, we definitely want to change. That's not the problem. It's the level of change and the type of change that begins to rub people raw, that starts to chaffs people's hides. And for me, in this last year, I do think more, and we've gotten much more clear on exactly what type of change we're doing.
I think the question of why [inaudible 00:09:48] a question for some people, why are we trying to become an anti-racist organization? Why is that essential to the way in which we solve climate change? And there's an article that I wrote called Racism Is Killing the Planet, which I was asked to write by our deputy executive director, who is my boss and in the hopes of articulating why it's necessary for the organization to take on an anti-racist intersectional analysis, because that was the disconnect that some of our folks were making. So if you asked me to make change across the board to get them aligned senior leadership, our senior leaders or directors, it's a very complex multi-layered structure. And depending on who you're asking that it would take being or not being.
Lauren Ruffin:
Just drop the link [inaudible 00:10:37] chat. I read that right after you first met up a couple of months back up, and it's a really great article that makes that connection to people often have [inaudible 00:10:45] which is how oppression floods through all of our work. And how [inaudible 00:10:51] really try to do inside of our organization is recognizing these people that we work with are also being impacted by oppression. And beginning to tease out the levers that we can pull as leaders to make the way that we work a little bit more humane. I'm going to go to you now Aja, because I know Change Elemental.
I won't say it was just like birth, but has a long history of working in a non-traditional way as an organization with shared leadership, and being non-hierarchical. So I would love to get a sense of where y'all feel like you are on your journey, because this is a way that you've worked for quite some time.
Aja Couchois Duncan:
Yeah. Thank you [inaudible 00:11:28]. We also rebranded. So it's a true statement to say it Changed Elemental has been working this way. But we were previously known as the Management Assistance Group, and I've been around for 45 years. And I wouldn't say that necessarily that's the way we've always been working. The we changing over time, of course not the actors change. Yeah, we started with a co-director model, which a little over five years, which now I know is like almost common place, but at the time there was a lot of push, both from our governance team. And then a bunch of people were like, "Well, how do you do that?" After we did it.
And it certainly enabled us to share power in different ways and draw on different people's strikes, but it wasn't any way of fully grappling with white supremacy and hierarchy and power and race in the organization. And it also didn't ease the endless burden of ed burnout, even if there was... it was to eds burden out basically. What was great about it is they hit a wall and that really pushed us to re-imagine what we could do in ways that enabled us to really live more deeply into [inaudible 00:12:38]. Yeah, we can a space for [inaudible 00:12:45] how our own, like the qualities of our own internal capacities manifest and how we show up and all of that kind of stuff.
So we started a journey about, give us a year and a half ago to re-imagine what it might look like. And we really wanted to draw on the strengths and powers of the... not power in that way, but the strengths and abilities and capacities of folks in the team. So we went from a co-director model to a five person what we called a chrysalis stage and just started having people hold more responsibility and influence in decision making in different aspects of mission sustainability, human sustainability, and fiscal sustainability. And then we moved into the next iteration, which we called the hub, and that became a... I'm trying to remember. I was just in a meeting. I think it's a six person team with the co-directors trying to increasingly step out and see what we could sort of grapple with.
And now we're on what will be the third iteration of thinking about what's.... it's so interesting Hop, to come after you. Because we're such a teeny organization that our constraints are much more around the governance team, which is wildly supportive. And we have an amazing governance team. But just so you know, the nonprofit, industrial complex constraints and expectations, which you do hit against, every time you push you're going to hit another one. Yeah, we're really small. So we don't have the amount of stakeholder potential constraints and feedback and influence that I'm sure you're all grappling with, of course my computer's reminding me to eat.
But now we're moving into another iteration and we're just starting to imagine what it will look like. I'll say some of our learnings we range between 10 to 13 people, is if you've got almost half of your organization in a shared leadership model, and then we created structures for actually everyone in the organization to be in what we call different paths of around functional aspects. Because we're almost too small to have certain functions actually at all. It's real big draw on the energy and attention to the organization. And so while we're learning tons of things and sharing them with our partners in the field, we also are in the dance of, what's too much so that we can't actually do the work that we're... her vision and mission are actually about.
So I think that that's probably always attention. And I know other small organizations that have been doing a lot of experimentation around shared leadership are hitting up against those things as well.
Lauren Ruffin:
Jason, you're up.
Jason Wiener:
Well, it's interesting we've gone down this progression of scale. And Aja, I will say we're probably even smaller. We're a core team of eight individuals, seven are attorneys, seven women and one man, which is an interesting dynamic in a law firm. It's highly unusual. I personally wrestle with notions of power and leadership as a white [inaudible 00:15:57] male in an organization that purports to practice in an unconventional way with unconventional types of clients. And to dismantle systems of white supremacy in as many places as they show up in our work. And so what that looks like we have, I think, a fairly robust stakeholder approach.
We have on any given year, over 150 individual clients. We've been around for seven years. And we were one of the first public benefit corporation, B Corp certified entities. We went through both the certification and the public benefit Corp thing at a time when brand stamping was really in Vogue. And I always knew that was really just the starting line for what it meant to actually practice with authenticity and a dedication to anti-racism anti-oppression. And we've cultivated a clientele that in many ways carries out those values into the world at a scale that's much larger than we ourselves can impact. And so, I think in some ways we're part of this value chain and yet we've pushed ourselves to invest more deeply in the work and the way that we do it.
And so we have a... despite this being... I'm the only quote unquote owner of the firm, but we've operated with 99% open book management. I come from an organization that had 100% transparency, down to individual salaries comp and everything else. And I decided that there was a degree of discomfort in that that caused me to ratchet that back just one degree. So we're 99% transparent. I do dashboard reports every week to our team. We produce annual public benefit reports with metrics that go far beyond what is required or even contemplated by the B Impact Assessment. We just put out our last 2020 impact assessment or B impact report.
We've done about five of them now, and it's interesting to watch the trends. But we're self-managed entirely. So I've made it very clear that I am neither comfortable nor desirous of the decision-making power within the organization. So even for fairly young attorneys, and when I introduced myself, I talked about trauma. A lot of folks come to even our small workplace with a lot of trauma, and it shows up and we tackle it transparently and hopefully in an environment of security and safety. It shows up in the way we talk about comp. It shows up in the way that we talk about budgeting. It shows up in the way that people talk about their conditions and needs for work as well their desire and need for autonomy and professional development and evaluations.
And we try to make it as multilateral and as inclusive as possible, recognizing that we all show up with work trauma. And it's been interesting and challenging because the unacknowledged trauma is one of the most pernicious and serious forms of oppression that we bring around in the world. And so it's such a relief when team members show up and either after or during a conversation acknowledge the trauma that they just brought to the interaction. And it gives me the safety to know that I haven't necessarily... that we can have a now more enlightened and hopefully liberated discussion about what we want versus what needs to occur.
And there's a lot of monikers for what we do teal lawyering or whatever, whatever. But really to me, I created the firm to be an enlivened liberated place for me to just be who I am and practice the way I want. And I discovered over the last couple of years that it's turned out to be a fairly inviting and safe place for others to show up to work too, and do work that far exceeds any possible expectation I had for excellence and dedication. And now we grapple with how do we... so I don't worry about how do we keep people motivated. I worry, how do we keep people from burning themselves out, running themselves into the ground? So we're one of those organizations. We're small, I don't like to police anything so unlimited PTO.
Now the irony is people don't use it. I have to encourage and remind people about self care, which is both ironic and I think a bit paternalistic. The white man reminding people to take care of themselves, but I make it a point to invite. When is your next vacation day scheduled? You're getting through something big now, just know not to jump into the next big thing. I have to actively ratchet back people's bandwidth reports to make sure that they're not overextending. So all this is to say that this is part of the journey that we've embraced and we take on and we try to showcase that and practice it with our clients as well.
Lauren Ruffin:
To that Jason. I can see some folks on my team who we had conversations during the interview process about work trauma. They're telling on me in the chat. But I think that work trauma comes up when we have organizations where leaders will power in a way that's really unhealthy. And it is interesting in particular when I'm managing and working with younger folks, they're entry-level employees, their first experience with our workforce is typically pretty horrific. And so we tend to get folks at Fractured Atlas and across who are maybe in their second job or second or third job, relatively young.
And helping them have transparent conversations about power and encouraging them to step into their power. I think is probably one of the most freeing aspects of about thinking about how power is distributed throughout your organization. Jason, I know that you're doing a lot of work with co-operatives. I'd love for you to really quickly dispel some myths about democratic governance and decision-making in particular. We continue at Fracture Atlas to get a lot of questions about how we make decisions. I also thought the question to chat about decision making. So maybe we could spend some time there as a group collectively. But Jason, you can get started. Because I know you have lots of thoughts on co-operatives and decision making.
Jason Wiener:
Sure. There's one followup I wanted to make, which is unfortunately when it comes to work trauma, I think particularly in the U.S. and probably throughout Western world, I think the only kind of example we have of folks who show up with a bit of an open-minded or liberated notion of work are entrepreneurs. And the entrepreneurs in some ways, we've developed this cultish iconic lionized version of what the Western entrepreneurs like. They show up, they overwork, they read, and they're these over accomplished often white men who come from privilege and means to fulfill a vision and a dream. And I think in so many ways, when we look to recruit people who are relatively self-aware and show up having thought of their work trauma, that's the only kind of example we have.
We don't have folks who are conditioned out of traditional employment based work trauma. That may be my segue to cooperatives. Cooperatives are no different. The cooperative is perhaps a more democratic and potentially more humane way to organize people, but it's not intrinsically more humane and it's certainly not intrinsically more functional. In many ways it's so well-practiced to be dysfunctional. And the examples we have are replete throughout the food grocery co-op sector, and even in the worker co-op sector. We're still... to some degree we haven't fully deprogrammed. And we haven't actually fully lived out the liberated notion of broad-based shared ownership.
I sometimes maybe jokingly or coily refer to the cooperative as the apple of business models. It should be intuitive and it should be practiced from an intuitive place versus a programmed way of organizing. So a lot of cooperatives will still organize themselves in a fairly traditional format. The board of directors views its central role to be somewhat adversarial with management and hold them accountable, or be captured by management and buffer them against the members. We don't have a really strong example or many strong examples of dynamic governance that involves proactively engaging broad-based members as owners and also as stakeholders, in a way that engages them and leans into the stickiness of the relationship that we've cultivated.
I think Crux and a few other examples are leading the breakout of what the mold ought to be. But we have to begin to pair some of the new thinking around self-management or non-hierarchical team orientation with the business model of shared ownership. So that we can fully express what ownership really is. Because ownership in America really is about power. It's about wealth and it's about liquidity. So it's about that big golden rainbow payday. It's really not about sustainability and durability and intergenerational planning. And that's what the cooperative models built about and not give one final anecdote.
We had a mini training moment on our team. We've got a client that's been a co-op for 75 years and they originally in the thirties and forties were issuing paper membership certificates. And one of the heirs to one of the members came forward the co-op and said, "This $50 share sure has got to be worth a lot of money today. I'm here ready to cash it in. What do you owe me? Five, 10, 25, $30,000?"
And the board said, "No, it's still worth $50." And they hired a lawyer. They thought this can't be right. And over the course of now, probably three or four generations, that person had lost track of what their family membership in the co-op was really all about. But it hearkens through several generations of technology. And with blockchain and smart technology, we can do so much better to tell the story about what participatory management is, what co-ownership is in a cooperative and what that means in terms of the access I have to policy setting and engagement.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. That's really profound, Jason. Hop, you're in a relatively new shared leadership situation, have y'all had any disagreements yet. And how did you ultimately come to a decision?
Hop Hopkins:
You got jokes.
Lauren Ruffin:
[inaudible 00:26:59].
Hop Hopkins:
That's why I like kicking it with you. You got jokes. Oh, I was telling you, I just came out of a budget, just came out of the ISC meeting the...
Lauren Ruffin:
[inaudible 00:27:13].
Hop Hopkins:
The [inaudible 00:27:14] committee. So it was like the whole space is contiguous without even having to put anything on the agenda. I mean, it's like, I always think about that James Baldwin quote precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscious, you find yourself at war with society, right? And it's that way. I mean, many of the things we're talking, about and Aja, I really want to appreciate you for naming it before I did. We're the nonprofit industrial complex, it's a system within a system within a system of oppression. That's not meant for liberation. And so there's already some bookends to what's possible given the system that we're trying to operate in. And that is the first challenge in going into an organizational transformation process.
Aja Couchois Duncan:
Yep.
Hop Hopkins:
[inaudible 00:28:07] way possible, given the context that you're in possible for this [inaudible 00:28:18]...
Lauren Ruffin:
Hop, we're losing you a little bit. [crosstalk 00:28:30].
Hop Hopkins:
... what just happened. So [inaudible 00:28:33] all right?
Aja Couchois Duncan:
Yeah.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yup.
Hop Hopkins:
I'm I back now? So that's the first thing is just really trying to get everybody on the bookends remedy. And that's really difficult, challenging when when you're in a liberal mainstream, most likely Neo liberal. I mean, most of us who work in nonprofit really are Neo liberal spaces, right? We need to understand that the role that nonprofits plays and really protecting the money and wealth of the 1% who happened to be a little bit progressive or want to put their money in a system where they could shelter. I mean, that's just the reality. And so I'm not saying that changes is... the level of change we're going to be able to do.
We should just ground ourselves [inaudible 00:29:12] the foundations of what [inaudible 00:29:14] what the ecosystem we're operating in. So that's one thing. So a 12 or 13 person executive team that was majority white, executive team that [inaudible 00:29:32] power, they would meet [inaudible 00:29:35] those people were barely knew what they did and they no voting power, right? They could say, don't agree. And then the executive director just do decision they want to do and feel like they've been transparent enough to say, "Well, I've let people know [inaudible 00:29:50] you have to be back. And then I made [inaudible 00:29:52]."
Then to a nine person body [inaudible 00:29:55] BiPAP folks, two of which are white. The two white folks are the executive director. And [inaudible 00:30:02] then you have some of us who are senior directors and our own executive team just positionally right? At that executive level. Some of us are not. So you get those and you'd have a conflict all ready, right? There's not even the word that needs to be said. And so the idea is a transformational process. The first thing you want to do is [inaudible 00:30:32] the problem you're trying to solve for, right? Because you have other people thinking that we're going to be in some hyper democratic process that's going to be horizontal and flat. Now we're going to sociocracy and so there's different visions and ideas about what you mean were in there. And you just got to lay it out for people.
And the first body like us from that, from that team to this, I have to tell people like, we're not the magic sauce. We're the cleanup crew. Let's just be real. We're going to [inaudible 00:31:08], pardon my bionics. We're going to clean up all the stuff that this previous body wasn't able to do. It's like being an organizer. When you are organized, you go knock on your first door in the neighborhood. They ain't trying to hear what you got to say. They going to tell you all the things that was promising [inaudible 00:31:27], that you didn't have nothing to do with probably, but you're going to get all the shit for. So on your fourth or fifth visit to that, you should just be prepared on your fourth or fifth visit to the houses is the time you've going to be able to talk about what you want to talk about.
Up until then, you're going to get an ear full, probably get both ears not off by all the stuff that went wrong and all the other people showed up. And so I'm telling people, "Look, let's just be real. We're the cleanup crew. We're going to try to set stuff right in this period. There's a limited amount of time, we're here because we have probably an overabundance of political capital that we're going to expand in order to move from this very highly visibly dysfunctional place to something that's the hope and promise of something different." And so if you're doing this, you should be thinking about it as an iterative process. And you need to be thinking about it as a multi-tiered, you're going to need to go into many different... you should be ready to experiment and fail, which non-profits and white supremacy culture are neither set up for to tolerate or want to do.
Which is change and experiment and fail. And then we do a pretty poor job of doing it from the experiments that we are allowed to do. So I've just tried to tell people, we're not that magic sauce with a cleanup crew. We're going to do some things, but that we're not going to be the body that's going to bring and deliver the organization transformation at the big level. We're going to level set, try to get people prepared for a larger level of transformation and then set the stage for the next group that comes through behind us.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. And Aja, what are y'all learning and [inaudible 00:33:01] around as you're to make decisions at Change Elemental?
Aja Couchois Duncan:
Yeah. Well, and I just want to riff on what you named because one of the experiments that when Alyssa Perry and Susan Mason started were co-directors was to do the work that they thought was most important with the organizations and leaders and networks that were the most important in terms of prefiguring a different future, one of liberation and love. They were like, "If it turns out it's not financially viable, as a fee for service with foundational support organizations, then what's the point? We're just part of the system. We're just perpetuating it. So we are often in that question, in the parameters of that question shifts, depending on where we are financially, external circumstances, all of that.
What we're always in that question, like if we can't be doing the work that we think matters, then we shouldn't be here. I think that... and I also didn't name in the same way I fail to describe myself. There's a theme here that the organization was originally, not originally, but we had our co-director model, two quire women of color, one black, one Southeast Asian, and now is two thirds BiPAP, a third quire. So number of identities have been really critical and were also predominantly cisgender female. And one of the things that we focus the most on, and I think that this is embedded in and everything that's been named as relationships. So building trust, getting really clear about what our values look like in practice.
Because you can say equity is our value, but what does that actually mean? These people hold very different mental models or pictures of what that is. And then what's the per share practices that are going to support us? And all of that being named and us all nodding our heads, I just came out of a meeting that was very tense, where we were like, "I'm still in some kind of way about what you're saying. And you're telling me this is the decision-making criteria. And yeah, I thought we were in a shared leadership situation?" So we get into it. And what enabled us to get into it? Because I think a lot of us as facilitators and coaches tend to be more on the lake support side, was actually just being in deep relationship and spending a heck of a lot of time with each other, and talking about what does shared leadership mean, and what does equity mean, and what does it mean to draw on ancestral wisdom?
And what does it mean? So be really clear about all the S-H-I-T, I have about money because of my intergenerational stuff, my own childhood. So we're often trying to unpack that stuff. So at least we can know, this is mine and this is the organizations, which is an aggregate of all of ours. Just to have some space to talk about and grapple with that stuff. Now I don't even know if I answered your question. [crosstalk 00:36:02].
Lauren Ruffin:
[inaudible 00:36:02] needed to be. So don't worry about it at all. I want to hop to a question we have in the chat here from [inaudible 00:36:12]. How can a traditional nonprofit organization adopt ultimate power and decision making models? Is this possible? I know that the sustainable economies law center has done a lot around democratic governance. Are there other resources that we could point the folks who are in the chat? I think pretty much everyone in this room is here because they're thinking about this, we [inaudible 00:36:33] some nuts and bolts resources of things that have been helpful as you all are creating, these organizations are beginning to lean into this.
Hop Hopkins:
That's one, the sustainable loss center. That's a good one. That's here in Southern California. So that's a great resource. I mean, I think... I'm just going to say this. I'm going to want to do resources, but I feel like I come up against this all the time doing equity, justice and inclusion worker intersectional work, in spaces where that's not been the norm. And I'm not saying this is where the question's coming from, but it does remind me of this, is that there is no silver bullet. That people looking for that one or two or three things that we can get. And it's not that easy. And I can give you a list of resources, but if the organization does not have the intestinal fortitude, or it's not oriented to be in this space, it doesn't matter what I give you.
If you're not ready for it, you're not ready for it. And I would say most organizations aren't ready to go to a third party. I don't want to bust up any consultants, but we spent way too much money on outside work because we're not ready there. And I think the first thing I was saying is, you've got to define the problem you're trying to solve for. And first you try to define the problem you're trying to solve for, you're going to find out that you're not all trying to solve the same question to the same problem. And that's the big thing. And I want to suggest that organizations get trying to clear on, what are we trying to pivot from to what is it about our culture that we've actually examined that is not healthy for us, that's preventing us from moving to this new direction.
So there's a bunch of pre-work that actually has to happen before I think you even get to trying to get to a consultant or resources. You just need to be clear because many of the concepts and things are going to be introduced to, most folks have had... I mean, look, this society doesn't teach us how to be participatory. Even in our own families. All the institutions that we've come through by the time you get to be 2021, and you're going to get your first job, you are ill prepared to do anything that's participatory for the most of us. Some of us have been benefited from having been homeschooled or alternative different exposures to different spiritual practices.
But the majority of people are not even... I mean, if you think about an athlete, it's not even our muscles have atrophied, to atrophie, you actually have to have the muscle present first. Most of us don't even have not one calorie towards what we're trying to do right now. So I would say before you would think about going to resource, get clear on what your organization's trying to do and why you're trying to do it. Right? And it's actually got to be honest... I'm just going to tell you this, if it's not situated in actually dismantling, systemic, oppression from the start, I mean, even if we could just get there, we could still have hierarchies and still be doing better work.
I mean, God damn. I mean, that's the problem. Is this just not recognizing the world out in the world and we're trying to just band-aid and tweak around the edges of justice. And so I would say there's a bunch of pre-work that has to happen to do that. And just some of these questions that I'm identifying would be helpful. And then one is like having a conversation like this, what are the leadership and cultural practices and pivots we want to shift from to? Get the idea of what's the difference between learning to some basic stuff. What's the difference between governance and management, right? Getting a clear idea about power and how it operates within our organization, within a society and how we actually want to relate to power in our new structure, right?
And also this thing, what Jason brought up was trauma. How is this place not psychologically safety for those who don't identify with the mainstream? And how is it that our decision-making processes and models now enforce and increase that level of lack of psychological safety? So there's some already things I think that we ought to do as an organization that take a back seat to resources. First is just getting from building a vocabulary to understanding about actually how our organizations are actually structured and function now, both consciously and unconsciously to perpetuate systemic oppression within these nonprofit structures.
And then once you've done that, I'll let Jason and Aja give you some [inaudible 00:40:40], and I've spent so much time. Because you bring in a consultant and I'm like, "Holy hell, what kind of mess that I get into?" And they're just trying to level up people to square one. [inaudible 00:40:48]. [crosstalk 00:40:48].
Lauren Ruffin:
To the crown level.
Hop Hopkins:
And they're happy to get paid, but they're living in their best way to help you move forward. And so I would say there's some shit that you just got to figure out ahead of time before you call a consultant. And if a consultant doesn't ask some of these questions, they're not worth a dime.
Lauren Ruffin:
That's so true. We've got four minutes left. There's one more question in the chat that I see, right. It came in earlier. I've been having many discussions recently with others from my team who feel as though decisions made by management, especially as it relates to performance assessment and promotions are opaque. I'm interested in especially how an artwork can better approach decision-making in general, so that it feels transparent and fair to those affected. Jason, I know you talked about open book management and some transparency in your organization. How are y'all handling performance assessment promotions? Because I know you're doing more than just billable hours as a firm.
Jason Wiener:
Yeah. This just came up actually. I mean we've only had full-time associates on our team for about three years, three out of seven. And in many ways as is usually the case, whenever you plan for a major change in your organization, the things that you don't plan for are the things that come up. And so that really speaks hop to your point about don't bring in the consultant to plan for a big change. You have to be prepared for the adaptation that's involved. So one, we try to bring a sense of mindfulness to all of these conversations and a sense of humility. We know. The one thing I know for sure, the one thing I'm really confident about is that neither I nor any individual on the team will have all the answers for the questions that come up.
So I go in thinking, "Okay, I'm going to tell you that I'm giving this my best shot. And I remain open and available and adaptive to the feedback that we need to adapt this tool." So first thing is we co-developed an assessment and evaluation matrix. And one thing that's kind of in my core is to know that whatever you measure, is a reflection of what matters. It's the same thing with nonprofits, whatever you budget for, that's what matters. If it's not in your budget, if it's not in your evaluation, it can't matter that much. And it's also not fair to informally measure the thing that's not there. So our matrix has a little bit on technical skill. It has a lot more on experience and skill development, what things...
So we actually developed this matrix and we have the person go through a self evaluation, and then we do an evaluation with at least one senior person. There's no supervisors or managers. It's a senior attorney only to provide some kind of a different perspective on training and experience. But we rank each component based on how important is it to the organization? How interested is the person being evaluated in that skill or piece of development? And then what is their expected level of proficiency? And then how do they rate against that? It's silly to just rate performance without knowing what the baseline is. We say for a fairly junior attorney, maybe they're only expected to be one out of five in terms of their expected proficiency. And I can tell them, well, you're over-performing, you're at a three already.
So with actually for 25 components of evaluation. And by the way, values, alignment and adherence to our norms are in that matrix, how you live out these values, how you support leadership within the team, how you exercise leadership outwardly. And again, these are all components. And so we measure that and we just did this with one of our associates. And on top of going through that exercise, our associates selected who would review her performance. So I asked her, I said, "I'll do it, you'll do it. Who else would you like to review you?" And we brought in somebody who she selected to provide that feedback.
And it was a conversation started. And what we looked for was misalignment in the tool. So where did you... and it turns out that again, this reflected trauma, she vastly under assessed her performance in areas where I thought she was just crushing it based not only unexpected levels of proficiency, but objective loves the proficiency. So we were able to talk about that. We were able to talk about what that meant in terms of professional development, where to devote resources. And then on top of that, we have a very open dialogue around compensation. So while individual comp is not public, I try to maintain a sense of uniformity in terms of the rationale and the approach.
We've got folks all over the country and so that makes it a little bit challenging. But everyone has access to all the numbers of the firm, every week. Everyone knows what we're working with in terms of resources. And so I've been fortunate more than I think I've been, well, intentional unfortunate. I have preempted every associate for a salary adjustment before they've asked. I've said, "You've been here a year, you haven't asked yet. I want to invite you to make a recommendation and a proposal." And I just prompted this associate for a review because I was like, and it was provisional. We agreed, but I was like, "I think we got it wrong. I think we're too far under, so let's do an evaluation and then let's readjust it." And that's just conscientiousness more than I think it's really anything else. But I'll stop there.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. Well, that's a good hopeful note to end on. As clear that this is really meaty and we could have spent another hour on this, but I want to be respectful of everyone's time. Hop, Jason, Aja. Thank you so much for showing up for us today. And I hope we can continue the conversation. We'll be back, I think on the main stage at the hour mark, wherever you are. Hopefully I'll see the three of y'all in the chat. Thank you.
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Policies and Practices for Hybrid Org Arrangements (EP.51)
Exploring how to create and maintain equitable policies and practices when your team works across differing onsite and remote arrangements.
Recorded
April 27, 2021
Last Updated
December 13, 2021
This conversation was recorded as part of Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit that took place on April 27, 2021.
How do you create and maintain equitable policies and practices when your team works across differing onsite and remote arrangements?
Resources mentioned during session:
Team Dynamics’s Behave podcast
Guests: Addam Garrett, Michelle Ramos, Laura Zabel
Hosts: Tim Cynova
Guests
ADDAM GARRETT serves as Operations Manager for the National Performance Network. Addam joined NPN in the summer of 2016 and has over 15 years of experience in education, program planning, and communications. He manages day-to-day organizational activities, which includes assisting all departments to meet the needs of our constituents. He holds a B.A. in Public Relations and Art History from the University of Alabama. Addam is a big tennis fan and sports enthusiasts and brings that passion to work everyday. “There is nothing a smile, humor and kind words can’t accomplish!” Can I get a big Roll Tide?!
MICHELLE RAMOS Dr. Michelle Ramos brings a deep and incredibly robust diversity of experience to role as Executive Director of Alternate Roots. Her background includes most recently working in criminal justice reform as Project Director of the Vera Institute of Justice, philanthropic work as a Program Officer at Women’s Foundation of California, and service organization leadership as Board Chair of Dance/USA, Dancing Grounds and Junebug Productions. In addition to being a licensed attorney, and holding a PhD in Cultural Psychology, she has significant organizing experience and has committed her career to serving communities and individuals adversely impacted by issues of race, gender, disability, class, socio-economics, inequitable laws and systemic oppression. Ramos, a retired professional ballet dancer has worked as an executive director for multiple non-profit arts organizations in many cities across the US. She has consulted for over 20 years nationally and internationally. She is the proud mother Broadway choreographer, Ellenore Scott, and since retiring from her own dance career, Ramos has continued teach dance, has competed as an Ironman triathlete and now enjoys her southern New Orleans lifestyle.
LAURA ZABEL is the Executive Director of Springboard for the Arts, which operates Creative Exchange, a platform for sharing free toolkits, resources, and profiles to help artists and citizens collaborate on replicating successful and engaging community projects. An economic and community development agency run by and for artists, Springboard provides programs that help artists make a living and a life, and programs that help communities connect to the creative power of artists. Based in Minnesota, Springboard’s projects include: Community Supported Art (CSA), which is based on the Community Supported Agriculture model and connects artists directly with patrons; the Artists Access to Healthcare program; artist entrepreneurial development; and Irrigate artist-led creative placemaking, a national model for how cities can engage artists to help reframe and address big community challenges. An expert on the relationship between the arts and community development, Zabel has spoken at leading conferences and events including the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Urban Land Institute, and Americans for the Arts. A 2014 Bush Foundation Fellow, Zabel’s insights on industry trends have also been featured in outlets from The Guardian to The New York Times. Zabel serves on the board of directors of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice and the Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (SPHR) is Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., a management consulting firm specializing in HR and human-centered organizational design. Whether it's through shared leadership explorations or alternative workplace arrangements, re-imagining recruitment and hiring processes to center equity and inclusion or decolonizing workplaces policies, practices, and programs, WSS is focused on helping companies co-create places where everyone can thrive.
Tim is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator. He serves on the faculty of Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In August 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the COO and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made this commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Also, during a particularly slow summer, he bicycled 3,902 miles across the United States.
Transcript
Laura Zabel:
Just really quickly, Tim, to your question of what hasn't worked, I feel like the lesson I learn over and over again is that it doesn't work when we try and say, "Here's our hunch about how people are going to want to respond, so here's what we're offering you." Every time we can make a choice to push something towards people's individual choice, their own autonomy, their own capacity to respond, those are the things that work the best, rather than trying to come up with a single policy that works for everyone, or a single mechanism that works for everyone.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I’m Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Earlier this year, podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin and I produced Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit. The event took place online on Tuesday, April 27, and featured eight sessions, 25 amazing speakers, and covered a whole host of topics related to the ethical re-opening of workplaces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We raced to produce the Summit from start to finish in just three weeks as we felt the urgency and stress mounting as workplaces were in the midst of re-opening decisions. Several months on, we still feel the content is as necessary as ever, so we decided to release each of the sessions in podcast form.
In each of the eight sessions, you'll hear the conversations just as the Summit attendees did. As a reminder, in late April 2021, COVID vaccine distribution was just gaining speed and we had yet to begin hearing about the Delta variant. From that vantage point in time, it very much looked like by Fall 2021 things might be settling back into somewhat of a quote unquote normal routine. As I record this preamble in Fall 2021, that's not the case. We're now talking about break-through infections, booster shots, schools opening and closing again, hospital ICUs are packed in states across the U.S., and still how to safety gathering in indoors as the temperature again begins to drop with the change in seasons.
In this session: Policies & Practices for Hybrid Org Arrangements, I'm joined by Addam Garrett, Michelle Ramos, and Laura Zabel as we discuss how you can create and maintain equitable policies and practices when your team works across differing onsite and remote arrangements. So, let's jump over to the conversation...
Oh! A quick note about the audio quality in a few sections of this episode. You’ll notice in a place or two that the audio quality and clarity is, let's just say, less than ideal.
The source file that came from the summit platform included these glitches. So, while we did our best to clean them up in post-production, we couldn't fix them all. That said, this is a terrific conversation -- audio glitches and all. Apologies for the added adventures in audio quality and we hope you enjoy the episode.
Tim Cynova:
Welcome to the Workplace Policies and Practices for Hybrid Organizational Arrangement Session, where we'll be diving into and discussing how to create and maintain equitable policies and practices when your team works across differing onsite and remote arrangements. A reminder about the Q&A section and the chat section, if the chat gets too lively put your questions in the Q&A, but I'll keep scrolling back and forth through both to try and pick up the questions and comments for the group here.
I'm Tim Cynova, a white man with short-to-medium messy brown hair. I'm wearing blue rectangular glasses. I have salt-and-pepper unshaven look right now. I'm wearing a black zipped up sweater that has a blue dress shirt and blue tie underneath. And I'm sitting in front of a wood paneled wall.
I'm so excited for this session. Truly some of my favorite people from some of my favorite organizations. Lauren Ruffin and I were talking about this before, we were saying, it feels like everyone's our favorite, but it's no, we just happen to know some really cool people who all said yes to this. So this is really exciting, for me to be in community with Addam Garrett, who's the Operations Manager for National Performance Network, Michelle Ramos, the Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS, and Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard For The Arts. Addam, Michelle, and Laura, welcome to the summit.
Laura Zabel:
Thanks, Tim.
Addam Garrett:
Yes.
Tim Cynova:
To kick things off, why don't we go in that order: Addam, Michelle, and Laura. How do you typically introduce yourself? And as you think about creating workplaces where people can thrive, equitable policies and practices, hybrid organization working arrangements, what does all of that mean and look like to you?
Addam Garrett:
Good afternoon everybody, I'm Addam Garrett. Black male, buzzed head, beard, salt and pepper, more salt now these days. Brass-rimmed glasses. Wearing basically a purple sweater with a blue jean jacket over it, with a little pendant on it. I'm speaking in front of basically a bedroom wall and a little lamp around to the side.
How we envision, or how I envision, I'll speak on us, in the processes that we're beginning here at the National Performance Network, is, we have an open environment, so we're transitioning, which the pandemic has pushed it forward, to more of a truly hybrid form. So how does that look is, we can work remotely from either at home or, since we have a lot of artists on staff so they can do the work too, so that can be anywhere in the country, the world eventually.
And what we do for contemporary art is, we [inaudible 00:03:05] space is transitioning that to more conducive to hybrid work, so there's more areas where they can confer. We have our little meetings, come in, get away from the assigned desk, or a specific desk. There will be work stations, but it's more of one of those hop-in, hop-out, lounge setup, which is kind of the environment that we have amongst the staff. It's carefree, and it's more us. So that's how we envision it. [inaudible 00:03:41] process, and that comes with its ups and downs, but so far we've made it work through the pandemic. And we're building on that, I'll say that.
Michelle Ramos:
I think I'm next. It's good to see everyone, or at least see you in the chat, so I can actually visually see you. My name is Michelle Ramos, I use pronouns she/her/hers. I'm calling in from ancestral lands of Bulbancha, now known as New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm wearing a black and white striped dress. I have brown skin, I am Afro-Latina, and I have a curly mop of salt and pepper hair on my head. I'm the executive director of Alternate ROOTS. Alternate ROOTS is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year.
As part of our work environment, we actually were, and have been, a remote office pre-pandemic, basically since I came onboard as Executive Director in 2018. We have always had folks that were remote, but when I came in we made a decision to go 100% remote, because for the work that we do, we need to be on the front lines. We need to be where our members are in our communities. We are across 14 states in the south. So for us there's intention around that. There is intention around wanting to have close access, and be in regular communication and in community with our members.
So for us, the pandemic wasn't necessarily a shift in how we work, but definitely, as a predominantly BIPOC run organization and staffed organization, we really had to take a little bit closer look at some of the things that we were offering in the way of support. Support working from home benefits, health and wellness, things like that, during this time, because our folks were the most impacted across our states with respect to things like the racial uprising, and other events that happened both during the pandemic and post-pandemic, and even now with the freezes across the south.
So we really pride ourselves on being a people-centered organization and not a process-centered organization, and so that is sort of our guiding principle. We're not perfect. We do make mistakes and we do learn. But by centering people and by centering the staff, we have found that that has provided an equitable and a healthy environment for everyone. I'll stop there.
Laura Zabel:
Hi, everyone. My name is Laura Zabel. I use she/her pronouns. I'm the Executive Director of Springboard for the Arts, and Springboard is based in Minnesota, which is the homeland of the Dakota and Ojibwe people. Springboard is bad both in the twin cities, in Minneapolis and in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. I am here in my home in Minneapolis on the second floor under the gable, and I am a white woman with brownish blonde hair, and wearing a gray shirt with little white flowers on it, and sitting in front of my bookcase and some of my needlecraft that I've done over the last year to keep my hands off my phone.
I come to this conversation, and I think Springboard comes to this conversation, certainly with the recognition that this is always a learning process. I think certainly the last year for everyone has brought into relief that context always matters, and that the conditions that our staff and our constituents and our community is in are changing all the time, and that means that we have to think about and change the way that we support people, and the way that we work together, all the time, based on the context we're working in, and the pressures and opportunities and needs of our communities.
I think specifically, from a practical perspective, there are several pieces of how Springboard is structured that influence how we think about workplace policies and practices, especially as it relates to remoteness and in-person-ness, and togetherness and diffuseness. The first is that Springboard is run by and for artists. We have a staff of 17 folks, and everyone on the staff has their own artistic practice, and so that has meant that the organization has always been rooted in trying to create policies that make space for people to continue that artistic practice. Because it's a huge part of who we are, and it's a huge additional value to the organization.
The other piece that's been really influential in this area is that now, for 10 years, Springboard has had these two locations in both urban and rural settings, and so that's demanded a whole different set of tools of working across those geographies, from the big-picture understanding of each other's contexts, all the way to facility with online Zoom sort of situations. So in [inaudible 00:09:15] going into last spring, we had a little bit of a head start, our staff already was pretty comfortable using Zoom, for example, to talk to each other and communicate across the locations.
We also, for about a decade, have had what some people call a results-oriented work environment which means that we don't track time off, we don't track hours. People have those jobs, and they're free to do those jobs wherever it suits them and whenever it suits them. And I would say as a counterbalance to some of those things, both of our locations, the one in St. Paul and the one in Fergus Falls, are both community spaces. So they aren't only office spaces, they're spaces that the community uses and needs.
A big part of our mission is local place-based holding of space for our communities, and so that is an in person endeavor for the most part. Although we've found ways to do that over the last year, they're still an important piece of our work that is about people coming together and being in shared space.
All of those things are kind of these counterbalancing forces and ideas that are the foundation for how we think about this work, and how we try and always be learning and trying to figure out what else we can do to better support the people who work at Springboard.
Tim Cynova:
You all have similar and different ways in which you're approaching this work, and one of the things I love about all of you and your organizations is, this didn't start last March, as we've heard. You've been experimenting, iterating, making mistakes, backing up and going a different direction, and putting a lot of intentionality and purpose into this, just to set our people, and not just policies, as Michelle said.
As we start to think about this reopening, how are you all thinking about it? What are you trying to hold with the new and different things that are present in the workplace and the world? Or maybe if they're not new, they're weighted maybe differently. So what's going through your mind, and how are you personally, and then maybe as an organization, starting to talk about and plan for this next stage?
Addam Garrett:
Am I going first again? Or does it matter? Well since I unmuted, I'll go. That's one thing that I'm spearheading currently, is how do we open, and what does that look like. Then piggybacking on what Michelle said, we center what we do, especially in-office, around the staff. We began that in our staff quarterly last week, when we discussed, how do you envision working in the future. Because we're pushing for remote working, but also one thing that's special about our group is, we enjoy working with each other. So when I think about us opening, it's [inaudible 00:12:30] putting anyone else in harm's way, and then respectful of their wish or how they feel.
So we began that conversation, and that's playing a big role, because I think we would gradually open, or in this new space that we're creating, but since, too, we will respect and take in everyone's opinion or feeling on how they want to do this reopening, also incorporating the right protocols, what's available, and all those things. And reinforcing that, when we begin again, remote is okay, and it's okay not to come in if you don't want to come in, and there's no animosity, or you're put in any position just because. That's where our conversations lead, or where we have started, and that's affected me a lot. It's just a big thing.
And further thing, when we do open, [inaudible 00:13:35] something like spring, not spring, I'm sorry, fall, but when we [inaudible 00:13:40] you want to be intentionally like, "We're going to do this month," or whatever in the conversation, you realize no, you can't just be a specific time. It's about procuring a safe space. And that's a challenge in itself, but we're always up for it here at NPN.
Laura Zabel:
Yeah, I feel like, probably I will be a broken record, I feel like all of these questions have to start with, well I mean we don't really know. Things change all the time. We are sort of planning for our best guess at what the reality is of the next six months, but I think so much of what's needed and necessary right now is to be, like Addam's saying, be in communication with your staff, with your constituents, with your stakeholders, with your community, and be clear and transparent that we don't know everything, and that we're going to have to walk through this together.
In terms of actually reopening our spaces, what we're planning on right now is that we're going to use the summer time to pilot some things, and kind of learn particularly public facing things that we can do outside. We have outdoor space, soak we're really lucky in that regard. And that also, for the staff, I think, gives us an opportunity to try out some things without needing a huge, "This is how it's going to be." We can pull back on those things, we can increase them if they feel good, if the context changes.
So that's our plan. Then, similar it sounds like to NPN, looking towards the fall, of trying to kind of anticipate and think about what might be possible in terms of us working in the office together some of the time in the fall.
I think an important factor, certainly for our staff, a factor that touches a lot of our staff in addition to all of the things around safety, which of course are the first priority, are other issues. This isn't happening in a vacuum, so with staff who have a lot of childcare challenges, for example, when school is not in session, or when summer camps are not happening. So I think thinking about, not just are we in our little bubble safe in this space, are we vaccinated, does everybody have a hand washing protocol, all of those things which are also important, but what are the other community issues that touch us and touch the staff? And that's different for everyone. People don't have the same circumstances or the same responsibilities in their lives, so being able to set policy that takes into account the other responsibilities for caretaking, for community, and for taking care of yourself also, I think, is another important piece.
Michelle Ramos:
I'd love to push back on that really quickly. I just agree with everything everyone has said. For us, there is no reopening because we don't have an office, but there is this sort of reopening of conferences. And for us, our ROOTS week, which is our annual convening, which is the thing everybody wants to be a rooter for, is to come to this annual convening, we had to have some serious conversations and discussions around, what's the right move here.
It started with the staff. What did the staff feel comfortable with, what's the first consideration, and then to your point, Laura, what are our members going through? Because sure, maybe as a staff we feel safe, and maybe we're able to pull off our ROOTS week, but what hardship is that putting on our members who have been financially just destroyed by the pandemic and loss of jobs, to say, "We're going to throw a big ROOTS week in person, and come on down! Oh right, none of you all have money. Sorry." It was about this broader context of, what are our members, our constituents, are they even healed financially, to be able to come to North Carolina to a ROOTS week? That was a real consideration for us.
That said, we also know we have rooters who are dying to meet in person, and are really frustrated because we are not doing any in person meetings till 2022, period. But what we've offered is, we are allowing them, or I shouldn't say allowing them, but actually encouraging them, and willing to financially support them, to do self-organized spaces in the places where they are. So if y'all are absolutely dying to get together in Atlanta, we won't stop it from happening. We will even financially help support to make that happen. But we're not going to demand folks come to ROOTS week.
It was a hard call this year. Last year was no-brainer, this year is hard, because this is what makes ROOTS ROOTS. So it's like taking the soul of the organization out of it when you're not able to meet in person. And although we did a great job doing virtual ROOTS week last year, it's just not the same, y'all. It's just not the same.
Tim Cynova:
I've been [inaudible 00:19:13] to know all of you in the organizations, and certainly benefit every time we talk. And we've talked multiple times over this past year like, "What are you doing? What's your policy for this? How are you approaching the leadership to the field election in the United States on November 3rd? What are you doing on November 4th? What are you doing in the period between the election and the inauguration? How are you taking care of staff?"
Can you talk about what you feel has been maybe the most meaningful policy or practice during this time, that the organization has offered and provided? Then flipside it with, maybe not even just from this time, but what if you try to be like, "This is going to be awesome," and people are like, "That is horrible"? So you can talk pros and cons here, what sort of tangible things have you been doing that relate to the topic?
It's whoever unmutes first.
Laura Zabel:
I'll take a run at it. I mean oof. I said I'm talking to you from my home in Minneapolis, about a mile from where Mr. George Floyd was murdered, amongst the other intersecting crises that came before and continue. It has been, I don't know, the only word I have for it is intense, to be in this community this year, and our staff are connected to their own communities in all kinds of different ways, and hold a lot of different identities and roles in their communities. And figuring out how to support people to take care of themselves and their families and their communities. And recognizing that for some of the staff, their work is also a part of how they do that, and Springboard's role in our community, the expectations that people have for support from us, also make it so that there's, I think for us, as I'm sure for a lot of organizations, there's always this tension between feeling like ... You can't always just shut it down. Even though that maybe feels like the moment we're in. And feeling like there are times, absolutely, when we got to just shut it down, whether it feels like we can or should or not.
I don't know if any of this is helpful tips. I'll just say maybe it's helpful to acknowledge, for folks to have some shared experience that trying to do this work of taking care of our staff, supporting them, making sure they have what they need, inside an organization that is operating, we're all still operating inside capitalism, inside white supremacy, that's a real mess with your mind, I'll just say. Walk a long way around to not say the F-word there. I think that's been the challenge, that's been the work. It was the work before, but it's definitely been the work of the last year.
Maybe I'll try and leave you with a few practical things. We have closed the office more than we ever have, and even though we're working remotely, I use "close the office" to mean clear the schedule, publicly say, "We're not doing anything right now, don't expect a reply." And we started doing that more because, it's a practice that Springboard had in the past actually. We've always taken a week in the summer and a week in the winter and closed the office, because it gives us some shared time away. So it was a thing that we looked to because we knew we were already good at that. We had that practice, so it was a good practice for us to pick up and say, "We could do that actually more often." We just did it last week after the verdict. We closed office for three days so people could focus on other things. So we've used that practice.
We've also tried to financially resource the staff, especially last summer, to be able to be in their community and contribute to things, or be part of things, or help folks out, outside of their work at Springboard, so people had some financial resources to put towards things. Just really quickly, Tim, to your question of what hasn't worked, I feel like the lesson I learn over and over again is that it doesn't work when we try and say, "Here's our hunch about how people are going to want to respond, so here's what we're offering you." Every time we can make a choice to push something towards people's individual choice, their own autonomy, their own capacity to respond, those are the things that work the best, rather than trying to come up with a single policy that works for everyone, or a single mechanism that works for everyone.
Michelle Ramos:
[inaudible 00:24:33] anything that I was going to say. [inaudible 00:24:38] health and wellness day [inaudible 00:24:44] 12 in 2020, where [inaudible 00:24:47] were just intense and folks needed time away from the office. We've always given two weeks off at the end of every year, but now we've added a total week off [inaudible 00:24:57] like you're saying, it's not a one size fits all thing, so it requires a lot of listening and hearing, and maybe being nuanced in what you're offering. This kind of speaks a little bit to Matt's question in the chat.
I've got staff members who were on maternity leave in [inaudible 00:25:18] how does that balance, when you have folks that don't have that benefit [inaudible 00:25:23] benefits to try to [inaudible 00:25:27] we can. Like we have [inaudible 00:25:31] full-time staff, but the remainder of our staff, [inaudible 00:25:35] to nine now, are all part-time staff working artists. So [inaudible 00:25:40] they all lost their gig work, because at the top of the pandemic we [inaudible 00:25:45] try to lift those hours up, thinking that [inaudible 00:25:49] would be enough.
But what they really found out later on, the hard way, was they were like, "We need mental healthcare, and I don't have benefits, so" [inaudible 00:26:00] healthcare stipend [inaudible 00:26:03] can use, either to sign up for a plan, or [inaudible 00:26:08] as they need for healthcare benefits. But [inaudible 00:26:12] was a need [inaudible 00:26:14] be transparent and vulnerable about that, to say that, I'm like, we have to do something. And that, I think, is a benefit that we will continue moving forward, permanently.
So I think the lesson is, it's not one size fits all, and if we are going to be committed to a people-centered environment, [inaudible 00:26:36] all your people may not need [inaudible 00:26:38], and need to be responsive and pivot based on what their needs are. If you're truly committed to it.
Addam Garrett:
[inaudible 00:26:53] now. But no, it's the truth. [inaudible 00:26:57] response, but that is the essence of where we are today, is where we started a few years ago. Just like you said, you give a break in the summer, in the spring, we do the same thing. Especially the summer break. And you don't realize how important those things are until you [inaudible 00:27:15] and actually live it. Because we were always, back in, like I said, a year or so ago, we were all about, work remotely, how do you want to work. And it's one thing when you tell somebody that, and then for somebody to actually be able to do it, or feel comfortable enough to do it.
That's one thing I give with the leadership here at NPN now, what we're doing is, we're being really, other than intentional, we're being like, "Yes, yes, yes, you can do this, you can work however you want." And they're promoting, which is [inaudible 00:27:49], if you need to break away, do whatever, do it, and it's okay. There's no getting in trouble or anything about that, and that's big.
And I will tag on, or add on, to that, one thing as an organization, what I mentioned earlier about setting up a specific time or month to say, "We're going to try to open this time," that's not good the best thing to do is to ask, to get that feedback, to see where people are, and be like, "This space is available to you, whatever you need," and this, X, Y, and Z. But we're not specifically saying when stage you've got to show up or something like that, because that's not what we're about. That's not what we're wanting to do. Especially for how we've been working and how we want to work, this is the natural evolution of our organization.
I don't know, just thinking about in the [inaudible 00:28:55], not everyone gets that opportunity to work like that, working in an environment where you can do meaningful work and love where you work at the same time. I don't know, that's just my thing.
Tim Cynova:
The concept of autonomy, [inaudible 00:29:12] taking a course, like a people analytics course, a couple of years ago, and I came across this research study, and I'm going to get the exact numbers wrong, but it was really eye-opening to me. They studied a group of people and gave them like 20% autonomy. So in a decision they had 20% autonomy, and people were happy with that decision if they had 20%. They were happy with it 70% of the time. Then they said all right, so the next group is, they get 10% autonomy. You get 10% agency or autonomy in this decision. People were roughly 70% happy with it. Then it's like all right, you get 2%. You just get to say yes or no, essentially, to it. And people were like 60% happy with it.
So we should talk about trying to make policies that are inclusive, and fit different people's way of wanting to work and live. Where's the 2% that we can ... Because to Laura, to your point of, here's this great thing, here's the four-day work week. "We didn't ask for the four-day work week." "You're going to love it." Then it's like, okay well, they had to kind of walk this one back. But where's the 2% here? Maybe not the 2%, but just a little bit can go a long way to helping people craft that workplace, and the policies.
Especially as we hold values like equity, which we know is not the same as equality, and from an employment law standpoint we have at least one person who has their juris doctorate on this call, Michelle. To speak to, employment law at best is striving for equality, where everyone gets exactly the same thing, which, that is certainly not equity. As Lauren Ruffin was saying in the first session, often times what employment law is, is the floor. It's not, what can we do, how can we invent new things. So I'm curious ... I've just totally lost the thread on this one. I'm curious, who wants to unmute and save me?
Michelle Ramos:
I'll jump in and save you since you named me in it. I do think it's the baseline. Let's be clear, employment law and the legal field is grounded in white supremacy, so here we go again. So the idea that one size fits all in the way of employment, for different people coming from different walks of life with different life experiences, is just ludicrous. That's not a thing, that's not real. It's real if you aren't interested in a people-centered practice, and you're all about product and performance, and getting things out and turning the thing, then yeah, maybe. But if you really are interested in wanting to put your folks first, then that's just simply a baseline. That's kind of where I land on it.
And let me just be clear. We have an employee handbook, we have all the things, but we totally decolonized our handbook, and put different language in, and took the legalese out. Luckily I was able to still make sure legally it was okay, but we definitely changed the language, we definitely changed the narratives, and how things were written. And the staff weighed in on that, and got to help draft that. They got to help draft their employee handbook. So just kind of finding these different ways of being able [inaudible 00:32:59] staff to feel like [inaudible 00:33:03] they are a part of this [inaudible 00:33:05]
Laura Zabel:
Just really quickly, what Michelle is saying, I think, is so important, and I think if there's something I can reinforce for folks who are listening, it is that process of just really asking the questions about all of the policies. So many of us who came up in our careers in all kinds of different environments have internalized all of these things that are norms, or that are the way things just have to be, or that we sort of have some hidden assumption is the law. But if you do that if you pull those things apart, I think often you will find, that's just a thing people have been doing for a really long time, and you don't have to do it that way. You could actually do it a different way.
And I would really advocate for starting with that process of decolonizing, and engaging staff, and talking through what you want, and then have a lawyer review it for you. Instead of, I feel like a lot of organizations, because of their boards or whatever, get pushed into, "You should have a lawyer write the policies for you." I think we can take that power back in our organizations and say, "We're going to start with what we want, and then my job, in my role at this organization, is to go to a lawyer, go to our insurance agent, and advocate for things the way we want them to be, and their job is to help me make the policy that support the way we want to work. Not the other way around."
Addam Garrett:
Right, because that's how we're approaching it too, is we have a handbook, we have all of these, but what matters now is how our current staff, how do you want to work, how does that look. And [inaudible 00:34:54] little bit like, try to understand that balance. And the only way to get to that, to her question, that sense of, is you have to start with [inaudible 00:35:04] ask them, and then as an organization, or the powers that be [inaudible 00:35:08] managers in each department that we have, have to listen to that, and be open to whatever challenges that arise, whatever questions that come in, because that's the only way that you can balance all that out. [inaudible 00:35:23] we are now is, we are putting ... It's really people-first organizational-wise, and what that looks like, and that's just not how you're ... I can speak for how I was [inaudible 00:35:35] working, or even when I began on it being how it was, and it has evolved us as an organization in such a short time, to levels of which, why I came in the first place.
It's just like Laura said earlier, you're not going to know all the answers. It's just a matter of, I don't want to say trial by error, but it's just a matter of, on both ends you have to be comfortable enough to say what you want, what's wrong with [inaudible 00:36:07], and then on the other end, to address it, and have open lines of communication to handle that situation and grow, both individually and as an organization.
Tim Cynova:
Cool, thanks. Thank you all. I'm keeping an eye on the chat here, and the time. We have like seven more minutes left. There's this question around about, let's see, Katherine has about unequal treatment of employees. Like how do you balance? If some people are in the office and some people are remote, just by being in the office and seeing each other, there might be unequal treatment or unequal benefits to that. How do you handle that kind of difference when you're managing hybrid work cultures?
Laura Zabel:
Yeah, that's really real. One of the things that's been sort of silver-lining of the last year, of everyone being remote, between Springboard's urban and rural locations, it's felt much more ... We all are communicating in the same way, and before that, we have more staff in the urban office than we do in the rural office, and that has been a source of tension and ongoing work that we've had to do around communication across the two offices. Because in both places, you have those kind of hallway conversations, and then all of a sudden you're three months into a project and someone's like, "Why did no one ever tell me about this?" When it felt like you had talked it out. So I think in some ways we've really benefited over the last year, of everybody knows who's been in the loop and who hasn't, because we've all had to communicate in the same way.
I think from a practical perspective, as we think about what it might look like to be in a more hybrid, where there is an option for some in person, I think we will probably have some times during the week where we ask folks to be in the office. We have a practice right now of an every-other-week all staff meeting, and then on the off weeks we hold two hours on Tuesdays that we call study hall, that is essentially time when we all hold so that it's easy for us to schedule meetings with each other, and we don't have to spend a bunch of our own time and energy scheduling internal meetings. We can just say, "We'll do that during study hall." So I think it's pretty likely that those will be times that we ask folks to be in person in the office, so that nobody kind of drifts away and never has any contact in person, while we retain the ability to be flexible with the majority of people's time.
Michelle Ramos:
I'll jump in here. I forgot to mention this at the top, but we, pre-COVID, even though we were in 100% remote office, we did meet three times a year in person. We would pick different locations so we could engage with members of our communities in the different regions that we were in, and then of course that went to all-virtual. So that'll probably remain virtual for most of 2021, but we hope to get back to those in person convenings, both for our staff and for our board, which has been part of our regular practice. So that face-to-face time matters. And then every week we have a two-hour staff meeting time that is held, so that we're having virtual face-to-face time anyway. But yeah, that in person piece, we've missed it a lot. It was really meaningful. So we're eager and anxious and hungry to get back to those in person convenings when we're able.
Addam Garrett:
[inaudible 00:39:46] that we do our staff meeting weekly. Virtual now of course. But what we do too, since most of ... I think everyone except for one person, [inaudible 00:39:57] staff, is in New Orleans, so we intentionally meet in a park once a month. We have a [inaudible 00:40:04] friendly safe park thing. Because that's important, that's also been important for us, is our interaction and our camaraderie. That's why when we think about, when we come back into the office, that's why we will have something where there's a day [inaudible 00:40:18] that is like the in person day. When it is, I don't know, but that's something that's, I think, vital for us, and what we do on staff and for the organization's overall health too.
Then convenings, that's a whole other big game. We didn't have [inaudible 00:40:36] last year, most likely not this year as well, maybe a virtual version of that. This process will help with [inaudible 00:40:43] too in the very near future here, because that will come up quicker than you think. But it's always just a balance of figuring out that it just goes back to [inaudible 00:40:54] organization is the people within the staff, is just to open lines of communication and just say what it is that you need. Even if you don't know, sometimes you don't know what you need, just have that access to say, "I need time," or whatever. And that's what I hope, and I know we will, provide for everyone there.
Tim Cynova:
As we're starting to land the plane here with two minutes left, a quick question that I think goes into thoughts from each of you about, what are your recommendations and resources that folks might want to explore? This is a broad topic, and there's a lot of different places where people can turn. Where do you turn when you're thinking about different ways of working? The specific question is, for people interested in decolonizing their employee handbook, did you go to any resources to help start that process? Or was it just, you did it all of yourself? So each of you, resources and recommendations for folks? And if you want to pick up the decolonized employee handbook question, and I know Laura, you dropped something in about results-oriented work environment, about ROW. So let's go in the Addam-Laura-Michelle order, if that works for everyone, the way we started.
Addam Garrett:
As ours kicked up, I guess what I most [inaudible 00:42:26] did like PTAP training. When we started doing those kind of outside training, that's when we really started transitioning. So that's a good resource, any of those organizations, is where we started. Aside from Googling in some stuff here or there, that's pretty much where we started. Then of course the last couple years, we've taken a break just because COVID and other things, but we made it [inaudible 00:42:59] ourselves. So a good resource is the staff itself, just asking that question sometimes of, just what do you need, honestly speaking. Sometimes, I'll just say this, especially when we do our staff retreats or anything quarterly, it's amazing the information we get from in house, and we don't even have to go out of house to get it, just because of the knowledge that's there you realize that's a great way to start. I'll just say that.
Laura Zabel:
Is it me next? Okay. Echoing Addam, I think starting with your staff, and like I was saying earlier, really giving, I think the biggest thing is giving yourself permission to ask those questions, and to sort of interrogate those practices. And I think permission and sort of a mandate and some urgency around the work, particularly work to make our organizations more equitable, more sustainable for the people who work there, can't only be the external program-facing work.
I say this all the time, the easiest way I can say it is that Springboard's mission is about helping artists make a living and a life, so if this organization doesn't take care of the 17 artists who work here, then what are we even doing? Then we might as well just pack it up. It has to star there, otherwise we don't have any foundation to build that work on. So I think a lot of it is really committing the time and energy to have those conversations about some of those policies that have been probably sitting on the shelf for decades maybe, that have never been questioned or asked.
And I think the other really good resource is other folks in the field, other people, both in nonprofits, but also people who work in movement organizations, and organizers, and I have learned quite a lot from folks on my board. I think sometimes, for folks who work in social justice or in nonprofits, we have this sort of impression that big companies are not good at this work, and that's certainly true in some cases. But I've also had board members who have brought really innovative and interesting ideas in terms of how their companies are supporting their employees through their board role.
Then I'm also going to put in the chat, there's a really great podcast that's produced here locally in Minnesota called Behave, that's all about equitable workplaces and policies, and touches on some of the things we talked about today, but also gets into how you think about holidays, and time off related to those kinds of things. So I'll just put the link here.
Michelle Ramos:
I’ll make it short, because I know we're close on time. I think everybody on this call is a resource, quite frankly, and I think really reaching out to colleagues in the field, folks that are doing this work. Alternate ROOTS has a deep bench of consultants who do just this kind of work, and so we definitely can make referrals make recommendations, and we are a total transparent organization, so if you're interested in what a decolonized employee handbook looks like, reach out, let us know. We're happy to share that. We're an open book, no pun intended, when it comes to sharing resources and the way we're doing things. We also decolonized our staffing structure this year, so if you go to the Alternate ROOTS website, we totally took the hierarchical practice out of it. We took the titles away, which we thought were very colonized, and created our own radical creative titles, and now we're tackling the bylaws. So yeah, we're in the process as well. But I think colleagues in the field often times are the best resources that you have.
Tim Cynova:
I have pages in my notebook, as expected, for things to follow up, thoughts. So Addam, Laura, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your insight during this session. Thank you so much for being part of the summit.
Laura Zabel:
Thank you.
Michelle Ramos:
Thanks for inviting me, Tim. It's great to be here.
Addam Garrett:
Thank you. Yeah.
Tim Cynova:
Find more about the Ethnical Re-Opening Summit, including speaker bios and session recaps at work shouldn’t suck dot c-o backslash ethical hyphen reopening hyphen summit hyphen 2021.
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Liberating Workplaces (EP.50)
Co-host Lauren Ruffin facilitates a discussion with Vanessa Roanhorse and Syrus Marcus Ware on how organizations can center those most vulnerable to craft workplaces where everyone can thrive. Their discussion explores recently announced changes at Basecamp, and also the workplace re-opening survey conducted by Work Shouldn't Suck in Spring 2021.
Recorded
April 27, 2021
Last Updated
December 2, 2021
This conversation was recorded as part of Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit that took place on April 27, 2021.
This past year saw the environmental impacts of the workplace shift dramatically. For many, travel for work was completely erased, both commuting and related business travel. Conferences that traditionally attracted hundreds or thousands of in-person attendees shifted to online offerings. As we consider how to reopen our workplaces, how can we do that in intentional ways that center our impact on planet and people?
Resources mentioned during episode:
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, Ejeris Dixon (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)
“Changes at Basecamp” by Jason Fried
“Basecamp's new etiquette regarding societal politics at work” by David Heinemeier Hansson
Guests: Vanessa Roanhorse & Syrus Marcus Ware
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Guests
VANESSA ROANHORSE got her management chops working for 7 years at a Chicago-based nonprofit, the Delta Institute, focused throughout the Great Lakes region to build a resilient environment and economy through creative, sustainable, market-driven solutions. Vanessa oversaw many of Delta’s on-the-ground energy efficiency, green infrastructure, community engagement programs, and workforce development training. Vanessa is a 2019 Village Capital Money Matters Advisory Board Member, 2019 SXSW Pitch Advisor, sits on the local Living Cities leadership table, is a Startup Champions Network member, is an Advisor for emerging Navajo incubator, Change Labs, Advisor for Native Entrepreneurship in Residence Program, and is a board member for Native Community Capital, a native-led CDFI. She is a co-founder of Native Women Lead, an organization dedicated to growing native women into positions of leadership and business. Her academic education is in film from the University of Arizona but her professional education is from hands-on experience leading local, regional and national initiatives. Vanessa is Navajo living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
SYRUS MARCUS WARE uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including in a solo show at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver (2068:Touch Change) and new work commissioned for the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art and the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future)) and in group shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, the Art Gallery of Windsor and as part of the curated content at Nuit Blanche 2017 (The Stolen People; Wont Back Down). His performance works have been part of festivals across Canada, including at Cripping The Stage (Harbourfront Centre, 2016, 2019), Complex Social Change (University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2015) and Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres (University of Winnipeg, 2015). // He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus' recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre. // Syrus is a core-team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Syrus is a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus is a facilitator/designer at the Banff Centre. Syrus is a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.
Co-Host
LAUREN RUFFIN Lauren (she/her) is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems & organizations. She's into exploring how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice. As part of this work, she frequently participates in conversations on circular economies, social impact financing, solidarity movements, and innovative, non-extractive financing mechanisms. Lauren is a co-founder of CRUX, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). Lauren is currently the interim Chief Marketing Officer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), where she focuses on amplifying the stories and activism of the YBCA community. Prior to joining YBCA, Lauren was co-CEO of Fractured Atlas, the largest association of independent artists in the United States. In 2017, she started Artist Campaign School, a new educational program that has trained 74 artists to run for political office to date. She has served on the governing board of Black Girls Code and Main Street Phoenix Cooperative, and on the advisory boards of ArtUp and Black Girl Ventures. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.
Transcript
Syrus Marcus Ware:
So you have organizations doing the work of trying to push forward into a new direction, and then you also have organizations taking 17 steps back, as we saw with Basecamp. So I think what's very interesting right now would be to figure out what kind of organization am I in, actually. Am I in the kind of organization that's taking 17 steps forward and meeting the challenge where we're at and say, "Okay, how do we live abolitionist lives?" "How do we create a community after capitalism falls?" "How does our organization last until 2030?" And then you had these organizations who are like, "Let's go back to 1983."
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I’m Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Earlier this year, podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin and I produced Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit. The event took place online on Tuesday, April 27, and featured eight sessions, 25 amazing speakers, and covered a whole host of topics related to the ethical re-opening of workplaces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We raced to produce the Summit from start to finish in just three weeks as we felt the urgency and stress mounting as workplaces were in the midst of re-opening decisions. Several months on, we still feel the content is as necessary as ever, so we decided to release each of the sessions in podcast form.
In each of the eight sessions, you'll hear the conversations just as the Summit attendees did. As a reminder, in late April 2021, COVID vaccine distribution was just gaining speed and we had yet to begin hearing about the Delta variant. From that vantage point in time, it very much looked like by Fall 2021 things might be settling back into somewhat of a quote unquote normal routine. As I record this preamble in Fall 2021, that's not the case. We're now talking about break-through infections, booster shots, schools opening and closing again, hospital ICUs are packed in states across the U.S., and still how to safety gathering in indoors as the temperature again begins to drop with the change in seasons.
In the Summit's opening plenary titled A Year in the Life, Lauren Ruffin is joined by Vanessa Roanhorse and Syrus Marcus Ware as they discuss what we've learned this past year and how that knowledge and experience can help craft thriving workplaces. Lauren and I get things rolling, so let's jump over to the action.
Tim Cynova:
Before we launch into a conversation with Syrus and Vanessa, want to take a quick moment to share some of what we saw from our workplace survey. Thank you so much to everyone who provided feedback on the survey. We'll be sending this out as well, so if it's a little small on your screen, don't worry. Lauren is actually seeing this for the first time, so she's living the excitement with all of you. We had this five question survey, it was multiple choice and we asked people the slides here, how many days a week do you expect to work in the office as of the fall? And how many days do you prefer? Almost no one would prefer to be in the office five days a week, or even four days a week. Otherwise, these graphs are all over the place and I look forward to digging into what this might mean in our future conversations.
Tim Cynova:
Next we have, when is your organization planning to let more than a handful of employees back into the office? Shaving off the edges for that happened already and not before January 22. It looks like summer and fall. However, a third of respondents still don't know. And that's not an insignificant number, or sorry, not an insignificant number of companies went entirely virtual, entirely remote as a result of the past year. When do you expect to attend an in person indoor conference or performance of at least 100 people? Almost two thirds said not before January, our remaining third said the last quarter of this calendar year. So for those of us working in sectors where we convene people, for example, the cultural sector, people coming together for performances, we'll be diving in today what does that mean for us, and our organizations, and our missions?
Tim Cynova:
And lastly, when do you expect to fly again for work? Some people are already doing this. So people expect in the next month or so. Overwhelmingly, most people say not before the fall or next year. So again, we'll be sharing those. Sorry, I'm bringing Lauren back in here. We'll be sharing those in the email that goes out so you can dig into that. But we launched this summit with two amazing, amazing guests who we've had on our live stream and podcast before, Vanessa Roanhorse and Syrus Marcus Ware. To make the most of the rest of our time, without further ado, going to welcome in Vanessa, and bringing in Syrus here.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Hello.
Tim Cynova:
Hi everyone. And with that, I'm going to pull myself out of the feed so the three of you can have the conversation, and I'll be back at the very end. So I have a good one everyone.
Lauren Ruffin:
Live Streaming is such a sport. It really fulfills all of my adrenaline junkie needs. [crosstalk 00:07:11]. How are y'all today?
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I'm good. I mean, it's Tuesday. I can't believe it's Tuesday. It feels like it's Friday. Not because it feels like it's the weekend, but because it feels like so much has happened. But I'm good. I'm well. It's nice to be with you early in the morning.
Lauren Ruffin:
Vanessa, how are you doing?
Vanessa Roanhorse:
I'm good. I started off my day talking about finances, and that's its own cup of coffee.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, for sure.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
I'm good. I'm happy. I'm in Albuquerque, it's gray out, which never isn't really common here. So it's kind of nice to have weather happening.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, we're supposed to get some rain. And I know we've got wildfires. We've got wildfires South here already. It seems the season is already kicked off, unfortunately. So the rain that's coming will be really helpful. Well, I'm really excited to spend time with y'all this morning. And you two don't know each other, so I feel what's going to happen is that beautiful crackle when probably kindred souls meet for the first time. It could happen, we're going to record it, it's going to be really brilliant. But I really think it's important to kick off with y'all, because what we're really talking about today is, as people are rushing to reopen, how do we do so in a way that is more sustainable, both for the earth the planet, and for us as people, where perhaps we can build new systems and structures and ways of working. And I know the two of you do a lot of thinking and are sort of engaged in a radical transformation and radical imagination about what our world and life can be. So just super again, really excited that you're framing this for us.
Lauren Ruffin:
I'll give a brief intro of y'all and then we'll let you jump in and introduce yourselves because I feel like both of your work is so expansive that reading a bio doesn't do it justice. And I also know that when you're multifaceted, the things you're thinking about day to day and what you're doing changes day to day, week to week. So I want you all to talk about what's top of mind for you. Vanessa is a really, really good friend of mine, my heart. I think Vanessa was the second person I met several years ago when I moved to Albuquerque. We've been inseparable since then. Her work with Native Women Lead has been transformational. Working now with a lot of finance is just doing radical, radical things. I don't want to, what they say, spill the can of worms or something like that, spill the beans. I don't want to vomit it all over before you get to share.
Lauren Ruffin:
Syrus is based in Canada. Does amazing work with the Black Lives Matter movement up there. I know we've not been hearing a lot in the States. I know our friends, the North have been going through it with regard to racial justice over the last couple years and just as long as we have in the States, and their work as an artist, as an educator, as an activist is also multifaceted. So with that, maybe, Vanessa, you want to give your brief intro and a individual description for our audience?
Vanessa Roanhorse:
Definitely. Yeah, it's A. Vanessa Roanhorse [inaudible 00:10:23]. I am Diné, Navajo from Navajo Nation. I live here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Tiwa lands. And I am a short indigenous woman who has mostly white hair, a little bit of black left, not very much anymore, wearing black glasses, black lipstick, black, I guess, my easy working in office blazer over my pajamas. And behind me in a room that's got a red wall with some images up there and some storage behind me. I'm really happy to be here. And thank you, Lauren. I honestly moved to Albuquerque almost six years ago. I had been living away from the Four Corners in my community for about 20 plus years. And upon getting back here, trying to reacquaint, build friendships. It's a lot harder in your 40s to make friends sometimes, because life is just so full. And just meeting you, it was magical, and it still continues to be. So I appreciate that. The love is there right back at you.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
I'm happy to say that I am my own agent, and so own my own company called Roanhorse Consulting. We are an indigenous women-led think tank, or at least that's what we kind of believe we do. We do a lot of work in capital access, economic development. We're using a lot of the evaluation methods lately to support people who are trying to build new, whether it's lending products or design more effective ways to understand economic data and why it matters, and what should we really be tracking. And so gratefully we use sort of our indigenous evaluation methodologies. And we think the plurality of those methodologies really are game changing, because they really focus on people and planet versus short term outcomes and job growth. So we're really trying to push on that side.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
And then on the capital access side, Lauren, you mentioned Native Women Lead, which is another piece of my heart work. And for me, Native Women Lead started because of my own journey to start a company as a brown indigenous woman, and how painful that was, and how lonely it was. And so Native Women Lead is now a fast global, globally growing organization focused on investing, lifting, scaling indigenous women into positions of CEO and leadership. All of this kind of balled up for me, because trying to start initiatives, companies, and access to resources was so non existent. I am now fully in the dreaming of new capital pathways for people and really looking at how do we innovate around underwriting, risk and evaluation. And then frankly, building the type of products that actually leapfrog and amplify what people are building. So it's been a good time. I hope that's a good introduction.
Lauren Ruffin:
It's beautiful. Syrus, tells about you and what you're thinking about lately.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Hey, everybody. Lauren, it's great to see you and it's so wonderful to meet. I want to hear more about this innovation hub and what you're doing. My name is Syrus Marcus Ware. I use he, him pronouns. I'm based in Tkaronto or Toronto, the part that was underwater at the time of the Toronto Purchase, so it's the unceded territory of the Mississauga of the Credit. I'm wearing a blue shirt with black polka dots. I have a long ostrich feather or Emu Feather earring that I'm wearing that I got when I was in Australia. I have blonde dreadlocks piled in a messy bun. I have a bunch of neon bracelets that my daughter made me on my wrists, and I'm in front of a very messy background of kids drawing and kids everything just sort of on every surface. And I have brown skin and I'm a black person. I'm a black trans, disabled, and mad artists, activist, and scholar. And that's what I look like. I have a short beard, too. I am an organizer, I've been organizing for about 25 years. I've also been an artist for about 25 years, and have been in the art sector working in large institutions and also working independently as a curator, and also as an artist.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
And I've spent 25 years really working within this milieu and trying to understand how to make sense of what it means to work in the arts. I'm trying to make sense of that. But at the same time, I've also spent the same 25 years as an organizer, as an activist. So to me, I've been really drawn to the possibility that the world could be different than it currently is. So I've been organizing around disability justice, and trans justice, and black liberation for 25 years. Most recently, I helped to co found Black Lives Matter Canada, which is the presence of the Black Lives Matter movement here in Northern tribal Ireland, and [inaudible 00:15:53]. And there are chapters in Montreal, and Vancouver, and Fredericktown, and all over, and growing. And so I helped sort of steward that organization and help to make sure that we are helping the chapters to do all the great work that they need to do.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
And then I also work as an educator, so I teach at McMaster University. I teach in the arts, but I also teach systems thinking and leadership at the Banff Centre. And I'm really interested in the possibility of creating workplaces where we all can thrive. I am so fascinated by that chart that many people were like, "I'd like to be in the office zero days of the week." Because I think that we can invent new ways of being, and now is the time to do it. So that's me. And it's great to be here.
Lauren Ruffin:
Awesome.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
Wow. Wow.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. So that's a great segue into what I kind of wanted. It's manna from the heavens. I was like, "What brilliant thing am I going to ground us in today?" And then Luckily, Basecamp totally screwed the pooch yesterday.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
So I don't know if it's manna from the heavens, or just the usual shit show that rains down on us. Just naming the difference there.
Lauren Ruffin:
You're so right. So I just dropped a link to the changes at Basecamp post that came out yesterday. It happens, our whole audience has it. I want to ground our conversation here because I really can't think of a more textbook example of what not to do as a well respected company. And so for anyone who's not familiar with Basecamp, they are a company that makes project management software. I'd say millions of people use it every day. They've been really vocal about how they grew. They didn't take investment dollars, they really tried to pride themselves on building a good healthy corporate culture that I look to often as I was building Crux, as I'm having conversations about Work Shouldn't Suck, sort of moving slowly, not taking outside investment, really building things that as much as you need to build, not being sort of overly creative or overly complicated.
Lauren Ruffin:
And so they had this post yesterday, where they're like they're changing the way they operate. And number one is no more societal and political discussions on our company Facebook account, because the social and political waters are choppy. No more paternalistic benefits, like farmers market shares, fitness, wellness allowance, etc. It goes on and on. But I'm really curious, as y'all were reading this, what were your first... Because Vanessa, I know you and I are on the same Twitter. Syrus, I don't know what your Twitter feed looks like, but mine exploded yesterday over this. So what were your initial reactions to reading this post? What really stood out to you?
Syrus Marcus Ware:
It is absolutely outrageous. As you said, how did he get it wrong in a paragraph and a half? It is absolutely outrageous. I just want to pull out, I mean the point that I have... I believe there's a bit of an echo. The point that stands out to me the most, of course, is the no societal or political discussions on our company Facebook account. Because of course, what are you going to do, remove yourself from society? If you're not engaged in the social world, and you're not staying relevant, what the hell is the point? But I want to draw your attention to, I know this is a smaller thing, perhaps, but no paternalistic benefits. For years, we've offered a fitness benefit, a wellness allowance, a farmers market share, but we've had a change of heart. It's none of our business what you do outside of work, what a strange hill to die on.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
What a strange thing to think, all of the social benefits that we do that make us part of a community, because as organizations, wouldn't it be nice if we thought of these institutions as actually part of the communities that they're situated within. All of the things that make our workers come together, and make our workers thrive as workers, as human beings who are alive, not just workers, let's just cut all of those things. And to call them paternalistic is such a strange response to something that people have been pushing for decades in the workplaces, more live-work balance, more ability to be a human. It is such a strange thing to thrust forward. But of course, my biggest issue is of course with the no political discussions. Yeah, it's hard.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
No, thank you. Because that it's funny. I saw the Twitter blowing up, I skimmed the thing, and I just kind of rolled my eyes. And I was like, "Oh." And Lauren and I were talking earlier more white type bro bullshit, right? Let's just not deal with what's happening in the world. So this is the most clear example of white supremacy. Let's lean into our privilege and say, "We can't deal with these things, so therefore we won't." "And if we ignore them, they'll go away." Let's not acknowledge that people's actual living cells are politicized every day. Let's just not acknowledge that, that's something you walk out the door with, however, whoever you are, and it's a political statement, just for B. And then the final one is, for a company that's rested on these morals, talk about the complete opposite of what they've been talking about for so long.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
And more importantly, the use of paternalistic to me is the perfect example of the continuation of the lack of social contracts that were willing to hold on to anymore, that we are all connected, that we're all part of the same community, and when you thrive, I thrive. The belief that that's paternalistic, and also someone can give you that right, is part of the problem. Is part of the whole broken safety net situation in United States. The whole broken idea that people deserve quality and dignified lives. So I think it was the world's biggest eye roll, and then I just moved on. Because where are you supposed to focus your energy honestly, at this point? And you know what, there'll be some statement in probably a week or two, where there'll be like, "You don't understand what we were trying to say, you missed what we were talking about." And gas light, gas light, gas light, like textbook, textbook, textbook, textbook.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Thank you for saying gas light, because that's exactly the way this reads. It takes the things that we've been fighting for, that we've said are important, like the ability to review your manager as much as your manager is reviewing you, and they've turned that around and said, "No 360 reviews, because it's too much work for you." Well, no, I've asked for this. Hold on a minute, but it's gas lighting and it's a way of making it seem the bizarre choices in this memo are somehow our wishes, it's because it's what's best for us. When in fact everything that they're cutting are the things that would make it a work environment. I mean, I just want to draw your attention to this one sentence about the political, "You shouldn't have to wonder if staying out of it means you're complicit or wading into it means you're a target." I mean, I don't know what else to say. I mean, if this is the framing, and what it means to be socially engaged in the world is that you're either, quote unquote, complicit. In what? In white supremacy? Or you're a target.What are they even saying?
Syrus Marcus Ware:
So I don't know that there is a statement that could be made on Twitter or otherwise, that would make me forget this statement was put out. I don't know how they're going to come out of this. But I do think that unfortunately, there are a lot of people who probably applauded this Twitter manager, because we're reacting. My Twitter feeds are curated, perhaps in a way where a lot of people were reacting. I'm sure there are people who are thinking this is great, because now I don't have to address my white supremacy at my job. Now, I don't have to listen to my employee who's giving me feedback about how I've managed. Now I don't have to arrange to make sure that so and so has their farmers market info or whatever. And it's very bizarre.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, I think it's so wow. And I can't keep. As I read it, I kept thinking about in your 20s when you're rocking in a really tight friend group, and then there's a couple that breaks up, and then everybody knows everybody's business all at once. And I remember sitting and talking to a friend and she said, I'm tired of doing the right thing for the right reasons about her partner and why they were breaking up. This feels like they've decided to absolutely do the wrong thing for the wrong reason on purpose. I don't know how you take a workplace culture that they were so vocal about. If they've been quiet about their workplace culture, nobody would have cared. They've written books and profited on this idea of their good place to work. And I see Courtney Hart brought up in the chat, I thought the same thing, the paternalism of what is wrong with a farmers market? Somebody hates organic food. You know what I mean? It's so specific. So anyway, what's your bet? What do you think happened? What did one of those founders get accused of that created this? Because this post is a reaction to something we don't know about, right?
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Oh, interesting.
Lauren Ruffin:
What do you think it is?
Vanessa Roanhorse:
That's a good question. I mean, who knows? The thing for me is someone got caught doing something and doesn't want to have that come to light. There's a deal on the table somewhere that is going to inform something for Basecamp forward, or three white people are just white people. They got scared. They got nervous about the current climate. They're looking at their other peers and wondering if... But also someone who comes from a place of privilege assumes that people get to pick and choose how politics plays out, and that you can opt out of these conversations. And so, I don't know. I mean, I hate to say that and mean it, but it's just I can't explain any other way. It's just a white male doing white male thinking.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I have a feeling that likely these values that are exposed in this, I don't even know what to call this, this info sheet, I think that these values are probably held dear by people in leadership and probably have been held dear for a while. I bet there's been a bit of a push pull about the direction, and for whatever reason, this is what went out. And we know that this whole reason went out because of white supremacy being dyed in the wool of our workplaces. And so that kind of dude-bro, white-sis hat kind of narrative, that we see in the writing of this. I mean, it's written like a textbook of neoliberal white supremacy, but in the business sort of an example of. Yeah, I think that probably these feelings have been held at the company for a while, and now it's just went out. So anyways, I'm so thankful that you brought this as an example, because of course, now, I've got my blood is sufficiently boiling to be ready for [inaudible 00:27:45]. Right, back on Twitter. I've got to tell you that.
Lauren Ruffin:
It's like a warm up, but I think focusing on David and Jason, the founders of Basecamp, and them feeling like it was their decision to make, right, which represents a level of hierarchy. And that in of itself is paternalistic in a company. So, I'm curious about that. But I'm also, I got to tell you, I woke up this morning thinking about the black and brown people who are in that organization. I mean, I'm guessing they're dusting off their resume. But this had to have been a hostile organization for them prior to the company shooting itself in the foot in this way, right?
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I mean, you would imagine that this is part and parcel. I mean, if anyone was at the helm is able to write what they've written here, it's so racist, and sexist, and violent, right? Because of course, it presupposes the people that don't have family, and presupposes the people that don't have self determination, or don't have disabilities. The way it's written is written with very few employees in mind being able to fit into this mold. So you can imagine that probably was a very difficult environment anyways for these racialized employees. I think what I would be thinking about would be, "Okay, so that black square that you put on your profile last June, that was just bullshit then?" I'm sorry to swear, but, "So that really meant nothing." We knew it meant nothing when a lot of these orgs put their square, but I don't know if Basecamp put a square, but once you write a statement that says we're no longer going to comment about political issues on our social media, you've put a nail in your coffin right there.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
And what that would mean to me as a racialized employee, it's that when racism happens to me in the workplace, where am I to go? That this is not an organization that's going to be able to help me through white supremacy if I experienced that on the job, anti blackness if I experienced that on the job. This doesn't create a feeling of safety or security for me as an employee to feel like I'm going to be supported when these things happen at my job. If an organization is going to go out of its way to say, "When we comment on politics." I'm sorry, there should be no two sides on the George Floyd killing. I mean, the man was killed and murdered by the police. That's not about, how do they say, wading into the waters and being a target or a complicit. I mean, it should actually be pretty straightforward. When we see violence and injustice such as that, you should be able to make a comment on that. And if you're not able to understand how to make that comment, that says lot more about where you're at in terms of your race politics. Yeah.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. And yeah, what about those employees, what are they going to do? And I think one of the things that I've been thinking about just as you were talking, is how these types of companies, institutions kind of continue with the ethos that the only purpose of business is to make money. The only purpose of business is to have this one single characteristic. But if you look at all of our communities and cultures before so much of this form of capitalism was the only option, we worked with each other, we relied on each other, whether it's for goods and services, we traded, we bartered, we understood that things were finite, and in that you paid for quality materials that were going to last. This just continues to be to me just that in stage capitalism that continues to claw its way up. But I hope that we're in a place now for those employees that the conversation has shifted, and that there are new social relationships being developed around these conversations, and we can have sessions like Work Shouldn't Suck. And it's actually a real thing.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
In that survey that Tim shared, where 0% of people want to work five days a week in an office is the perfect example. The question is, what are we going to do, though, to start to come back and create the better safety nets for our employees going forward, that isn't farmers markets, but it's healthcare. So in the United States, we have garbage health care. The ability to have health care, and so that when you get sick, you can continue working. The ability to have the flexibility if you're a single mom, or you just are a single person who needs time for mental space to not have to do a nine to five. And the agency we need as people to define how work can work for us is I think the work right now. So what are the social safety nets we have to focus on? And then how are we creating the process so that people can actually have a life outside of work?
Vanessa Roanhorse:
So I don't know. I think that's the moment that we're beginning to pause it. There's a whole lot that needs to happen on the policy side for us even get there. Because we've been thinking about it here in New Mexico. I'm a small business owner, I've got employees, and I can't offer meaningful benefits right now. So we are looking to history to say, how did people create cooperative forms of health insurance? What's the mass numbers we need to be able to get quality, particularly native American health care insurance. So those are the things I'm thinking about right now as we move forward. Because I don't know what we're going to do in terms of office either.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
It's so interesting, because at the same time as Basecamp was making this statement, you have other organizations reading books on transformative justice, reading books on abolition, thinking through how to have an abolitionist rooted organization, how to resolve conflict in your organization without relying on carceral logics and punishment. So you have these organizations making these massive conceptual leaps, they're going through a systems change, and they're trying to learn how to be better and more agile and respond in ways that tie into the abolitionist drive that we're seeing in the community. So I work at an institution, I work at a university, and my department chose to read collectively Beyond Survival, which is that incredible book by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in a jurisdiction that looks at transformative justice stories from the field, including in workplaces, and how to implement them. And so we collectively read that book together over a period of weeks and had a reading session to think about what would it mean to take a non punitive approach in our relationship to the university, in our relationship to our students, and their relationship to our colleagues.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
So you have organizations doing the work of trying to push forward into a new direction, and then you also have organizations taking 17 steps back, as we saw with Basecamp. So I think what's very interesting right now would be to figure out what kind of organization am I in, actually. Am I in the kind of organization that's taking 17 steps forward and meeting the challenge where we're at and say, "Okay, how do we live abolitionist lives?" "How do we create a community after capitalism falls?" "How does our organization last until 2030?" And then you had these organizations who are like, "Let's go back to 1983." And that's what we thought is Basecamp email, was let's go back to 1983, and we'll just live in that area for a while. I'd rather be in an organization that's moving forward and moving into these new directions that we're seeing in the social world. So to me, I think you're right, Lauren, they're dusting off their resumes. I mean, wouldn't you? I mean, I would be very hesitant to want to stay somewhere long term that was taking these kind of steps backwards.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder how much people reflect on the way they were taught to lead. An organization was really based on compliance and control instead of liberation. Because to me, to Vanessa's point about healthcare, the law says that we have to sort of offer certain things. There're a ceiling. I mean, there're a floor, and that floor is so far below the surface. But if we get to liberation, we get to the point where Vanessa started talking about what are the ways that we have historically operated to get people what they need? I know we have about 10 minutes left in this conversation, if there are any questions for Vanessa and Syrus, feel free to drop them in the chat, and I'll do my best to answer them, or have to ask them and then they can answer them. I'll make them do the work this morning.
Lauren Ruffin:
But what are some of the core tenants of a place where POC wouldn't be dusting off their resume? The political statements on Twitter is a good place to start, but what are the deeper sort of core values? Vanessa, I know that when you do events with Native Women Lead, there's always childcare there. And that, to me seems like a no brainer, but for some organizations, it seems an added expense, or an added level of coordination. How are y'all operating that sort of bringing the sense of imagination and liberation?
Vanessa Roanhorse:
We never question or negotiate people's time and what they tell us it costs. It is something we kind of try to work with, which is like, "You believe this is what you're worth, we're going to start there." So part of it is just recognizing. Because we work, almost not exclusively, because it's not an exclusive, it's just a lot of the folks we've been working with are women of color. And a lot of them within the Native Women Lead network are 35 to 45. So a lot of them are mothers, caretakers of young people and older people. And so we knew immediately, not only is childcare important, but access to quiet time for these women, and for people to be able to find space to just be alone to meditate, to think. If they needed access to spiritual materials, they were there. So this is just for all events that we tried to do. But additionally, we pay for every speaker and their time, we never not pay, we don't ask people to do us favors. And it's something that I didn't realize was such a big deal until I got in the conference circuit myself, and realized how much I had to fight for compensation for one hour. And how hard it was. And people were like, "Well, that's not what we do, we pay for the event." And it's just like, "How is that possible?" "How is it that we're not honoring?"
Vanessa Roanhorse:
So those are some of the things we've done. But in my company at Roanhorse Consulting, we basically have created the process forward where we will be an employee owned company over the next two years as we move forward that way, and that was my desire and gift to help build opportunity, and wealth, and assets for my team and my staff who've never had that before. And so in that building, they get to be a part of the decision making. We ultimately hope to move completely to team leaders similar to a law firm, where there's just lead folks who develop their portfolios. But honestly, it's just imagining a future in which people have agency, have self determination as you shared, Syrus, and also the ability to make choices on things we get to build and create. And it seems so simple, but turns out it's actually so antithetical to what most folks think of in terms of company, in terms of what matters. And I'll be honest, I've had to go to banks to get additional money and resources to help me grow this. And when I talk anything outside of traditional business practices, I become a risk to provide lending and resources to. So anyway, those are just some examples. I would love to hear yours, though, Syrus.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Yeah. I'll talk about Black Lives Matter Canada, because we're in the process. We've a small staff team. It's a national organization that provides support around black liberation nationally, and we have this small staff team. And we were determined from day one to be the kind of workplace where people want to be engaged, they want to stay connected. So it's rooted in black liberation, it's rooted in black justice, we have made sure that there are things like benefits, and sick days, and on all of the things that you would want, yoga classes. And all the things that Basecamp has just cut, we've made sure are available. But also, we wanted to make sure that we're building out the capacity for our team to grow and diversify in the future. So we've been doing ASL classes with all of our staff, because one of the things that I find outrageous is that we're still in a situation where we're completely segregated between hearing, and deaf, and hard of hearing communities. We've created a world where we're in different schools, different workplaces, different communities, and never the two should meet.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
And we wanted something better than that for our communities. We wanted black, deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing communities to be working together for the liberation of all of our people. So we've all been learning ASL, black ASL, actually, which is a specific dialogue, dialect. We've been learning black ASL since January, with the incredible black deaf instructor, And just doing these kinds of things that are kind of building us towards an organization where we could have deaf and hard of hearing people working with us, and we can all communicate with each other. So just starting to work from day one with the plan of becoming more and more and more reflective of the diversity of the country, rather than less and less and less, which is what we're seeing in this Basecamp's email.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
No, 100% it's values. What are your values? I think everything you're saying I just think about, so much of our work, we talk about we need to understand if our values aligned, what are the values of what we're creating? How do the values hold us accountable? And I will tell you most times most folks don't want to go there. It's just too much work. It requires too much time. But it's like, if you aren't willing to build a true relationship, which is going to be bound by values, it's going to be bound by trust, it's just not worth it. It's just ultimately long term not worth it. And I think that's exactly it. Also, by the way, I had no idea there was black ASL.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, because-
Vanessa Roanhorse:
It's so amazing.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:42:55] videos are amazing. You've got to check it out.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Yeah.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
Oh my god, I got to find this. Yes.
Lauren Ruffin:
Tim's back, which means that we're running out of time.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
Hi Tim.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Hi Tim.
Lauren Ruffin:
I'm usually super happy to see Tim, but this time I'm not.
Tim Cynova:
I'm so happy I wasn't moderating, that I could just sit there and listen to this conversation. Oh, god, that was amazing. Syrus, Vanessa, thank you so much for starting the summit off with us. The panel was terrific, and I look forward to be able to go back and rewatch it.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Thank you so much.
Vanessa Roanhorse:
Yes, thank you. I wasn't done. I want more time, but another time.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
We could literally talk about this all day. That's the thing, is there is... I mean, I'm glad it's a whole summit, because there is so much juicy stuff to talk about.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, well hang on to that, we'll get lots of time to talk later on.
Tim Cynova:
Find more about the Ethnical Re-Opening Summit, including speaker bios and session recaps at work shouldn’t suck dot c-o backslash ethical hyphen reopening hyphen summit hyphen 2021.
If you’ve enjoyed the conversation — or are just feeling generous today — please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or 5 stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers.
Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Employment Law and COVID (EP.49)
When it comes to providing a workplace free from COVID hazard, what's required and what's not? What's legal and what's not?
Recorded
April 27, 2021
Last Updated
November 23, 2021
This conversation was recorded as part of Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit that took place on April 27, 2021.
This past year saw the environmental impacts of the workplace shift dramatically. For many, travel for work was completely erased, both commuting and related business travel. Conferences that traditionally attracted hundreds or thousands of in-person attendees shifted to online offerings. As we consider how to reopen our workplaces, how can we do that in intentional ways that center our impact on planet and people?
Guest: Andrea Milano
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
ANDREA MILANO focuses her practice on all aspects of employment litigation, counseling and traditional labor matters. She manages a diverse caseload of class, collective and representative actions, single plaintiff litigation, and traditional labor matters. She has significant experience drafting and arguing substantive motions, conducting discovery, and preparing for trial. Andrea regularly provides direct advice and counsel on a broad spectrum of labor and employment law matters, including conducting positive employee relations and sexual harassment avoidance trainings; investigating payroll and wage and hour audits; developing, drafting and revising handbooks and employment policies; and managing performance issues, terminations and reductions in force. While she has handled litigation and employment matters across many industries, her focus has been on technology, hospitality and health care.
Transcript
Andrea Milano:
I think you do have to think through it, and you have to be willing to have the conversation and meet employees where they are. An older employee, an employee with asthma, an employee who has another condition might be much more risk averse in terms of getting back on the subway or a bus than lower risk employee in terms of their basic demographic standing. I think the other thing you need to consider is income range and socioeconomic status, because this disease is not impacting everyone the same.
Andrea Milano:
And so if you have employees, like if the people at the top who are making the decisions park in the parking garage or can afford to take Uber or have drivers, that's very different than the people who have to take two buses or a subway to get to work. And those are realities that are hard to confront, but that you have to think through.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I’m Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Earlier this year, podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin and I produced Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit. The event took place online on Tuesday, April 27, and featured eight sessions, 25 amazing speakers, and covered a whole host of topics related to the ethical re-opening of workplaces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We raced to produce the Summit from start to finish in just three weeks as we felt the urgency and stress mounting as workplaces were in the midst of re-opening decisions. Several months on, we still feel the content is as necessary as ever, so we decided to release each of the sessions in podcast form.
In each of the eight sessions, you'll hear the conversations just as the Summit attendees did. As a reminder, in late April 2021, COVID vaccine distribution was just gaining speed and we had yet to begin hearing about the Delta variant. From that vantage point in time, it very much looked like by Fall 2021 things might be settling back into somewhat of a quote unquote normal routine. As I record this preamble in Fall 2021, that's not the case. We're now talking about break-through infections, booster shots, schools opening and closing again, hospital ICUs are packed in states across the U.S., and still how to safety gathering in indoors as the temperature again begins to drop with the change in seasons.
In this session: Employment Law & COVID, I have the pleasure of chatting with Andrea Milano about the myriad ways employment law and its application have been changing and evolving amid the global pandemic. Note again, this conversation took place in April 2021. While there's a lot that still holds, this was before wide-reaching vaccine mandates. So, let's jump over to the conversation…
Tim Cynova:
Hi, everyone. And welcome to our session, employment law and COVID. I have been anxiously awaiting this session ever since our guest said yes to it. I'm Tim Cynova, I'm a white man with short to medium messy brown hair. I'm wearing blue rectangular glasses. I have like a salt and pepper stubble. I'm wearing a black zip-up sweater with a blue dress shirt and blue tie. And I'm sitting in front of a wood paneled wall.
Tim Cynova:
A reminder here, about the chat and the Q&A section, I'll be paying attention to that. And let's just dive in. I'm so excited for this session. I'm so excited to be joined by the awesome Andrea Milano, who is a special counsel of employment law at Pillsbury Law. Andrea, welcome to the summit.
Andrea Milano:
Thanks so much, Tim. I'm really excited to be here.
Tim Cynova:
Let's begin with, how are you doing and how do you typically introduce yourself?
Andrea Milano:
Sure. To start my name is Andrea Milano. I am a white female in her 30s. I have long dark Brown hair and dark rimmed glasses. I'm wearing a brown suede jacket and I'm sitting in my basement, my home office space. You can see behind me, I have a wall of gold maps, which is all the states I've lived in my whole life. That's where I am. Professionally, I introduce myself, so I'm special counsel at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. I am so happy to be part of their employment law team.
Andrea Milano:
I've been practicing employment law since 2011, so this is my 10 year anniversary of being in this field. I've really tried to maintain a diverse practice of employment law, counseling, litigation. I also do labor law, which includes union work. And this past year has been very focused on counseling because in the world of COVID, that took over. And so just always learning new things and growing and meeting our clients' needs however we can.
Tim Cynova:
Andrea, I haven't read your bio and in a while. And so I went to the website as I was prepping for our session, and your areas of practice include travel, leisure and hospitality, artificial intelligence, healthcare, technology, media and telecom, as well as employment law. And so these are all areas that don't seem to have been impacted at all during the past year, at least jokingly. What has this past year been like for you?
Andrea Milano:
I will say, one of my very favorite things about employment law that has always been the case is that everyone has employees, which means I have worked cross sector and cross industry, really my whole career. And I love that anytime I'm talking to someone, whether they're a nurse or a mechanic, or... I have had some wild clients, the cheese makers, all these different things. Everybody has employees, everybody can talk about being an employee or having employees.
Andrea Milano:
As diverse a set of issues as COVID has caused, I think the employment sector is something that we've all been able to feel and think about and have impact us. Yeah, we've been getting calls from clients throughout the firm, everybody has questions about what to do with their employees. And really one of the silver linings of this year has been, everyone is trying to do right by their employees. And so it's really, really... I've spent the past year focused so much on what do we do? How do we help? What can we do?
Andrea Milano:
It's been a year that feels really out of control. There has been some positive, tangible impacts that we've been able to have, and I'm proud of that, and grateful for that.
Tim Cynova:
I'd be curious if... my sense is that most of the organizations and people who are here are smaller, they might not have HR staffs. We saw it in the chat, Jessica said they don't have an HR person. My sense is that the group we're speaking with too, this might be a lot of DIY. You're an executive director or a deputy director, you don't have a formal background in HR, you don't have an HR person. It is felt in this past year, I've been fortunate to attend a lot of the webinars that Pillsbury's produced, also you and your colleagues in employment law group there have been publishing some great alerts.
Tim Cynova:
It feels like there was a day where employment law was changing every single day as it related to COVID. And as someone who enjoys HR, has a background in it, loves serving employment law, that was of interest to me. But first of all, how are you processing everything that's coming out where it feels like the ink on the law wasn't dry by the time people were having to figure out what was happening?
Tim Cynova:
And how do you counsel smaller organizations where they might not have anyone... the person who's doing HR is also doing marketing and also doing finance and operations. What's your typical response?
Andrea Milano:
I think that my initial responses acknowledged the hard. I think we all need to get better at doing that for ourselves, but it's been a challenge. And if you're doing this and even for HR and employment law professionals, this has been hard and challenging, and there aren't always clear answers, and it is a moving target. And it does feel like whack-a-mole a lot of times. And so, this is hard and it's something that we need to be really thoughtful about and pay attention to.
Andrea Milano:
So if you're not an HR professional and this HR was a much smaller part of your work-life before COVID happened, I think acknowledging that this is hard, and this is changing, and it is a challenge is important. And so there are a lot of really great resources out. Pillsbury, I have to plug my own firm. Pillsbury has been working really hard to stay on top of developments.
Andrea Milano:
I guess the other thing to note is that it's so state and city-specific. There's really different standards depending on where you live and where you have employees. Even within an area like I'm based out of D.C., between Virginia, D.C., and Maryland, the standards are different. So if you have an office in Virginia, you have to comply with certain very stringent guidelines that don't apply to other states. So it does feel like a moving target.
Andrea Milano:
I think it's just staying aware, asking for help when you need help, finding the resources that can help you, and being agile. I think being able to respond and say, "Okay, that's what we were doing and now we're going to pivot because we have to."
Tim Cynova:
Great. Let's pivot right into some real life questions here, and we'll let some more gather in the chat. We did a survey leading up to this, and there's been several that I've seen that have been asking people, "Come fall, how many days a week would you prefer to work in the office? How many days a week do you think you'll be expected to work in the office?" And the numbers are all over the place. But not that many people would prefer to be in the office more than three days a week or so, is roughly what's coming out of it.
Tim Cynova:
One of the questions I'm starting to hear with increased frequency and urgency, and I'm sure you are as well is, "What if my employer says, 'If I don't come back into the office five days a week, or as many days a week as they want me to be there. And for reasons I might fear for my safety, and my health, and those of my loved ones that I'll lose my job?'" There's two sides of this from the employee and employer side. I'm sure you're hearing this, what do you make of it? What's your counsel?
Andrea Milano:
It's a hard question. I think there's a lot of things that go into it and I think employees and employers are both really grappling with this decision. And being an employee and also someone who counsels employers, I feel both of this strongly. Depending on any specific job or return to work requirement, one, I think a lot of it is going to be tied to schools, because I don't think it's reasonable to expect a full workforce to be back five days a week if schools are not back five days a week.
Andrea Milano:
Because the realities of childcare are such that if your kids aren't back in school, what are you going to do? So I think for many reasons, getting schools up and running five days a week on a consistent, safe basis is a top priority. And my mom is a public school teacher, so I feel very strongly about that for many reasons. I think it will also depend a lot on what city and state mandates are an and how things progress.
Andrea Milano:
I expect that private companies will continue masking requirements, whether or not those are required by cities and states. I've seen that already as some states have rolled back those requirements. And I think employees should feel empowered to ask for details about what's being done to keep them safe, and employers should be welcoming those questions. Quite frankly, I'm counseling employers to be proactive, like, "Your employees should feel safe here."
Andrea Milano:
Returning to work should be a positive thing, nobody should be kept in the dark. And everyone should know what the protocols are, what we're doing, what to do if something goes wrong. See something, say something, and I think it needs to be a collaborative process.
Tim Cynova:
One of the very early things, it might've been in the very first session, your colleague Julia Judish started talking about the OSHA general duty clause that requires workplaces to provide a workplace-free of hazard, and that now COVID was a hazard. And it was this moment where I thought, I studied OSHA's general duty clause is like dangerous chemicals and sharp objects and stuff like that. But now this was like applying to everyone, workplaces that generally didn't have to think about it.
Tim Cynova:
So I got a question about what's OSHA general duty clause? And is this related to what I've been hearing about why Congress was or is trying to limit employer liability, if employees get sick and die from COVID. Can you break down the OSHA general duty clause and how workplaces should be approaching this?
Andrea Milano:
Sure. In general, a general duty clause is basically that you can't be negligent. You have to maintain your workplace in a way that a reasonable employer would to protect against things. And so nobody's expected to protect against everything. If there's some natural disaster and somebody gets hurt at work, OSHA isn't going to say, "Oh, you're on the hook for that." But if something happens and you don't have shatter-proof windows and you should have had shatter-proof windows because that's the standard of construction, then you would be on the hook for that.
Andrea Milano:
So the general duty clause is really tied to what's reasonable and what can be done. COVID is tricky, it's just different. And I think it is scary for employers to hear that they could be on the hook for it, and I think it comes from a lot of different ways. Are you requiring your customers and your employees to wear masks? Are you requiring social distancing? Do you have a lot of physical workplaces have tape on the floors, showing people how they stay apart.
Andrea Milano:
What do you do if someone comes in and refuses to wear a mask? How do you handle those situations? Is the boss wearing a mask. Those are the kinds of things where I think an employer could get in trouble if they're not meeting that reasonable person standard. And I think that that will be judged by what the mandates are. In D.C., the mandate is currently that if you're inside, you have to be wearing a mask, you have to be six feet apart. It doesn't matter if you've been vaccinated or not. Those are still the rules.
Andrea Milano:
And so if you are an employer and you are not requiring people to wear masks, if you're not social distancing, you're not meeting those basic thresholds, I think there could be liability there. That's the easiest way to think about it, but I think there's other concerns as well. Depending on your workforce, if you have a significant population that requires public transportation, is requiring employees to be in-person if public transportation hasn't made it to where it's a safe space.
Andrea Milano:
And then if somebody gets sick on public transportation, picks it up, brings it in, or even just gets sick themselves. I think that's more attenuated, but I do think we have to think through some of those other risk factors as well.
Tim Cynova:
How would you think through those risk factors? Because from New York, there's the subway, or buses, or you're walking. And so there's a lot of distance a lot of times between where you live and where you work. And so how as an employer, what would you be thinking about as it comes to that?
Andrea Milano:
There's so many considerations that go into it. I have a good friend who lives and works in Midtown and she's been walking into the office. And she feels in some ways an obligation to get New York city back up and running, like how many lunch places cater to in-person employees who aren't there? On the other hand, my sister lives in New York city and I don't want her to take a Metro really ever again.
Andrea Milano:
I think you do have to think through it, and you have to be willing to have the conversation and meet employees where they are. An older employee, an employee with asthma, an employee who has another condition might be much more risk averse in terms of getting back on the subway or a bus than lower risk employee in terms of their basic demographic standing. I think the other thing you need to consider is income range and socioeconomic status, because this disease is not impacting everyone the same.
Andrea Milano:
And so if you have employees, like if the people at the top who are making the decisions park in the parking garage or can afford to take Uber or have drivers, that's very different than the people who have to take two buses or a subway to get to work. And those are realities that are hard to confront, but that you have to think through.
Tim Cynova:
Great. I'm going to pivot to some of these questions that are coming in before I lose them. Emily asks, "What does an employer do if an employee who has been vaccinated doesn't see the rationale for wearing a mask?"
Andrea Milano:
Until guidance changes, CDC and OSHA are both still saying that despite vaccination status, mask mandates are to remain as they are. If that changes, we can reassess, but for the time being, those are the rules, those are the rules as set forth likely by your mayor or whoever your governing authority is. There should be strong policies in your workplace that require masking. And someone who is not willing to comply with the law and company policy should be counseled and terminated if they won't comply, because they are still potentially putting other employees at risk.
Tim Cynova:
Great. Thank you now. Let just... Thank you, not great.
Andrea Milano:
Not great, but employers should feel enabled and empowered to do that and to make people follow the rules.
Tim Cynova:
The next question is about, "Our office suite is on the 18th floor of an office tower. One of our concerns is air filtration. What level of meeting OSHA requirement do we need to consider for risk?"
Andrea Milano:
Sure. A lot of the questions about shared office space would go to building management. And so someone within the company should be working with the building management company, elevators, the shared spaces, dealing with things in that regard. I think absolutely if it's a concern, have an air filtration company come out and do an assessment. I know that there are HVAC systems that can I think... I don't know what chemical it is, but there is a chemical that you can have in your HVAC system that really is killing COVID germs and it's really decreasing risk.
Andrea Milano:
If that's something that you have the means to do, absolutely do it. I think, the more steps we put in place to prevent things, the better. Absolutely.
Tim Cynova:
We have a question about regulations with vaccine reporting and testing, and it actually relates a bit to one of the questions that I received before. Beforehand, I was talking with someone who runs a dance company and said, "I know where our dancers are. I know that they've been quarantined or vaccinated. When we go on tour, we're in tight spaces in the backstage of venues. I don't know about those spaces and about the employees and contractors who might work there. What do I do?"
Tim Cynova:
And then maybe these are related, maybe they're not, quickly reading as they're coming. The question about, [inaudible 00:19:01] to learn more about regulations regarding vaccine reporting or testing for events and gatherings for staff intending. So sort of related here, I'm sourcing you this bucket, what do you make of it? What's your advice?
Andrea Milano:
Great. An employer can ask about vaccination status of its employees, that's fair game. That said, an employer has an obligation to protect the confidentiality of that information. That does fall within HIPAA and other medical employee privacy rights. An employer can have a mandatory... vaccines are required to be on site so long as they can justify that anyone who is not vaccinated would be posing a direct threat to the other employees.
Andrea Milano:
But if someone says that they are not willing to get vaccinated or can't get vaccinated, and that's related to a disability, you have to be willing to engage in the interactive process with that person the same as you would if they had any other disability. And this is in part because the vaccine is still under emergency use authorization, and also because... It's hard because there's so much going around with the vaccine, but there are certain categories of individuals who may be higher risk for a complication from a vaccine.
Andrea Milano:
And so if someone were not able to get it because their doctor had advised that they shouldn't based on another underlying condition, to the extent that that person could continue to work remotely or other accommodations could be made, you have to engage in that same interactive process. I've also been getting questions related to this, can employees share their vaccination status? Can you have an in-person meeting and say, "Don't worry, it's okay. Everyone here is vaccinated."
Andrea Milano:
No, don't do that. Everyone, quite frankly, I think employees will talk about it. I've talked about it with folks, there were folks sharing, "Oh, Hey, I found a spot that has appointments available, you should go. I think employees will talk among themselves. That's very different than the employer speaking on behalf of the employees. And to the extent that you have employees in your workforce who have a legitimate disability and reason for not getting it, you don't want to start a witch-hunt or in any way suggest that those employees should be outed or made to feel in any particular way because they didn't get the vaccine.
Andrea Milano:
So generally, you can require it. In the context of the dance company, I think it's absolutely fair to ask the company that you're visiting, what are their policies, what are they doing? And see what that is. I would stay away from any questions to the extent of, is XYZ person vaccinated? But they may offer it, they may say, "We have a mandatory onsite vaccination policy and that effectively communicates to you that someone has shown up, they have been vaccinated.
Tim Cynova:
This is one of those areas of HR verse like, before COVID is like, "Don't talk about anyone's medical condition, anyone's medical history." Now it's like, "We could take temperatures or ask about symptoms, but can you ask about the person they might live with, about their symptoms and where they've traveled?" And it feels really complicated in the potentially really challenging area to navigate this, especially as things are changing. What's your advice on this?
Andrea Milano:
It is complicated and I think it is changing. And I think the further we get from crisis point, the more we'll see things roll back. I have a friend who is a small business owner and she said, "I'm just going to have a policy forever that nobody with a fever can ever come in." And I said, "Okay, except that people with a lot of noncommunicable diseases can have fevers, and so can cancer patients who are undergoing chemo, and plenty of other people who you wouldn't want to exclude from your store."
Andrea Milano:
But right now, it's absolutely fair game to say, "If you have a fever, you are not allowed in the store because it's a public health crisis." So the things that we're seeing are being done because we're in a crisis. And I think that we should be careful about making any snap judgements as to what we'll do on a going forward basis. Because I do think that employee privacy has a place in work, but there has to be a balance. And the public health concerns here are outweighing the balance to an extent of what we normally see.
Tim Cynova:
Great. All right. I can see, I'm trying to cue these questions. I've been trying to order these questions in my mind as I see them here because there's some other ones. Let's just go with the last one that came in and then I'll swing back up. "Are there any differences in what can be required of staff working directly with children?"
Andrea Milano:
I have not seen that yet, but I can see where that would come. I think once the vaccines are no longer under emergency use authorization, once they have been formally approved by the FDA, I think we will see more mandatory vaccine requirements with school teachers, with daycare workers, things to that effect. And so then I think that the exceptions for individuals with disabilities will be much more few and far between, and there won't be room for exceptions for people who just don't want to get the vaccine, as opposed to who have a disabling condition that precludes them from getting it. But I haven't seen anything else dealing with children yet.
Tim Cynova:
Thanks. Also, you're doing awesome. You're just saying question after question, so kudos. I hope you're staying hydrated, if you have a PowerBar or something like that.
Andrea Milano:
I got my water, I'm doing well.
Tim Cynova:
All right, cool. Let's talk about travel a bit-
Andrea Milano:
Sure.
Tim Cynova:
... because actually the other session that is going on right now it relates to intentionality around environmental impacts. And right now, for many who used to travel a lot for work aren't doing it right now, haven't done it for a year. And so there's a question coming in that says, "If the job requires travel when travel resume, how to accommodate for employees that no longer want or are able to travel for work anymore?" What do you think of that one?
Andrea Milano:
I think that's a good question. I was someone who traveled a lot for my job before COVID and it's been a pro and a con to not be traveling. The first couple Zoom depositions were a challenge, but it was also really nice to not fly across country for a two-hour hearing, and I think a lot of people are feeling the same way. So I think going forward, we will be forced to reconcile what travel is actually necessary. I think COVID in general has forced us to think about what is actually necessary, how can we do things otherwise?
Andrea Milano:
I think certainly some things will be in-person, and to the extent that... I think an employer should feel empowered to have travel obligations. I think some things do have to be done in-person. But to the extent that you're trying to accommodate someone who has a disability, who has small children, who has other obligations, I think people will think harder about it because this past year has proven that things can be done in a lot of different ways and still be very effective.
Andrea Milano:
And so to the extent, with reasonable accommodation requests, I think it will be harder to prove if you're going to deny someone a job or promotion, something like that that something really is required. And we've already started to see that even in returning people to work. If somebody can continue doing their job remotely and has been doing that for the past year, let's wait it out, let's be cautious here. If they don't want to return yet, let's let them continue to work from home.
Tim Cynova:
Great. We have a couple of questions about communal spaces or if people have like plus one on communal spaces. It says, "What are we seeing as best practices around maintaining communal staff spaces, where even when not gathering like brief staff use of a break room, amenities like fridges, sinks, microwaves?" Can you speak to what we should be thinking about there?
Andrea Milano:
Sure. There are maximum occupancy reductions that have been in place, so I would start by checking any specific ordinances that are governing in-person use of physical spaces, and then posting signs to that effect. I think signs on the floor are very effective, showing where people should stand. I've seen companies moving to having single service food available so that there's not reaching into a communal space.
Andrea Milano:
I've heard about companies doing almost like delivery to offices so that employees don't have to go to the kitchen, which feels lonely, but is mitigating the risk. My sister works for a company that I'm often jealous of. They used to do bagel Friday, and now everyone gets a DoorDash gift card on Fridays saying, "Go buy your own bagel because we don't have those anymore." So there's a lot of different ways to handle it.
Andrea Milano:
But I do think making sure that you are reducing capacity, extra cleaning, to the extent that you can provide extra cleaning, to the extent that you can add things like sanitizing wipes, hand sanitizer stations, spacing any tables out so that employees just have to sit six feet apart, staggering break time, so that the use of the break room and communal spaces is... Instead of everyone going to lunch at the same time, people are going in a staggered group. So anything you can do like that to reduce overall capacity.
Tim Cynova:
We have a question, "I heard of incentives for vaccines like gift cards, but wonder if this is problematic. Can you speak to this?"
Andrea Milano:
It's a little problematic to the extent that you would have someone who had a legitimate disability or disabling reason for not getting the vaccine? I think it could also cause someone to be in a position to disclose something before they were ready to. Particularly, I think if someone were pregnant early on and were waiting to get the vaccine, something to that effect, they may not want to tell HR that they were pregnant yet. My other issue with giving gift cards to employees is that that is taxable income so I could do a whole separate session on that.
Andrea Milano:
But I've litigated one too many cases where no good deed goes unpunished in that sense, so I would caution that. But I think you could have... if you wanted to incentivize it, you could maybe do something that if we get to 80% vaccination, we'll have a pizza party for everyone. And that way nobody is singled out and pizza is not taxable, or whatever it is, but some sort of more communal incentive.
Tim Cynova:
Great. Let's pivot to remote work arrangements. I've got a couple of questions already about this and see one in the chat. One of the questions is, "With so many workplaces shifting to remote work arrangements last spring, I've heard things like, should my employer be providing me an allowance for my home office internet if they require me to be on Zoom calls all day?" How do you advise approaching this both from an employee perspective and employers perspective?
Andrea Milano:
From an employee perspective, if you are incurring costs, like legitimately incurring costs that can not be avoided, you should be telling your employer. That is not carte blanche to go refurnish your home office space, but I think we've seen it with IT folks who are working out of a call center. They have a requirement that they have very, very high bandwidth internet so that they can remote on and help assess IT issues, and you wouldn't have that at home. So if their employer is requiring them to up their Comcast bill, that is something that should be accounted for.
Andrea Milano:
I think another concern is if you're working from home with multiple people, and so you have multiple people on your WiFi, you as a family unit or household unit may decide to increase. I don't know that that would specifically go to your employer, but I do think that employers in many cases are affirmatively providing these allowances to employees because they realize that there are more costs associated with it. You are using more bandwidth, we are on Zoom all the time.
Andrea Milano:
So I think if you're an employer, you should absolutely be considering it. And as an employee, you should feel empowered to ask questions about it and to be honest. I will say, a lot of the employers who I've been working with on this, their question is, what's reasonable? And so I think to the extent that this can be a collaborative process, that's helpful for everyone because it seems to me that employers do want to do right on this issue. And so to the extent that they know what their employees are actually incurring, what their employees need, they've been, in my experience very willing to provide it.
Andrea Milano:
I've also seen a lot of employers doing office supply pickup and drop off days. And so on the first Wednesday or every other Wednesday, you can go and get any supplies you may need, you can drop off anything that needs to be shredded, things to that effect. And I think that's helpful as well.
Tim Cynova:
Last summer I heard a question about increased electric bills. When I used to go to the office, I didn't have to run my air conditioner throughout the summer. And so is that something that the employer should be paying for?
Andrea Milano:
I think that gets a little iffier. I'm sure we'll see plaintiff's counsel bringing those cases, but I think that gets a little iffier when it gets into anything such as a personal preference. Growing up with my mom, we never put the air conditioner on, so we never would have had that expense, but I can certainly see the argument there for it. And I think we may see some claims there. Again, if an employee is in a really specific situation where there's a hardship, I think if an employee, for example, didn't have internet access at home, something like that, that they should bring up.
Andrea Milano:
But I don't think utility bills will generally fall within an employer's scope of obligation. Especially once there's an option to safely return to work, those claims will go away.
Tim Cynova:
One of the topics that we've talked about a lot, very spirited conversations, and now that I'm debating your expertise in employment law, I just like having it, is the unlimited paid vacation day policy.
Andrea Milano:
We have lots of that... I was like, "What are you going to bring up?"
Tim Cynova:
Your colleague, Julia, I think doesn't want to have that conversation anymore. I guess, meaning like cap it, you can do more than 10 days, but to have an unlimited paid vacation day policy opens yourself up to a lot of risk and that if someone doesn't get it or someone else gets it, then that can be challenging. Your advice and Julia's advice is, you can have it at like 45 days. You can cap it at 60 days, but have some limit here.
Tim Cynova:
But it seems like, I'm going to use this as a pivot to on both is, things, I got unlimited paid vacation days are starting to gain speed as people are talking about, take the time that you need. We're living in a pandemic, we're not operating 100%. That's one thing. And then also the four-day workweek seems to have picked up velocity in recent weeks or months as organizations say, "Okay, so people don't want to be in five days a week. If we are working at 80%, let's just say we're working at 80% and close on one day."
Tim Cynova:
With both element of paid vacation days, I'm not an unemployment attorney, you should not take my legal advice, but Andrea's. If you're thinking about a four-day work week or a flex work week, what should you be thinking about as you approach this as an organization?
Andrea Milano:
That's a good question and I think we're thinking about that as well in going back. My group actually was big into working from home even before COVID, so we've been talking about how do we do setting a day every week that all the employment lawyers will go in, because if I go in and Julia's not there, and Rebecca's not there, then I may as well as stayed home because what's the benefit of being in-person? So setting the in-person days so that everyone can make the most use of being in-person, and then doing things remotely on other times.
Andrea Milano:
I think hoteling of office space will also come up as we move to reduced capacity. If different groups are using the office on different days, you might not need as much space as you currently have. Hoteling can lead to some concerns. I know some people really like it, I don't love it. I like having my ergonomic setup and it's my office, I have my pictures. But I think that's something that you can think about as long as you're meeting employees needs moving to hoteling.
Andrea Milano:
On the unlimited vacation point, I'll say one of the cons of unlimited vacation is that employees often don't take it. When you're empowered to take as much as you want, you often take none. And I think that's been something people are really feeling during COVID, everyone was so worried about what was coming next, is their job security that people not taking any time off. I've seen some pushes recently really forcing employees to take their time off and take the time they need because we're hitting burnout.
Andrea Milano:
I know there's at least one law firm that is giving billable credit to people for a week of vacation, which is unheard of in the big law world. It speaks to how bad it has to be that they're there. I think one of the ways around protecting a company if you want to do the unlimited time off and you want to be more flexible, is to just write in language that says, "Any leaves have more than five days needs to be approved ahead of time." Or, "Any time off taken for any of these reasons," and then you list jury duty, family medical leave act for disability because you're sick.
Andrea Milano:
Those don't fall under this policy. I'm trying to create the carve-outs, because one of the concerns that we have is that an employee has a medical condition, thinks they can manage it on their own, starts taking time off. By the time the employer gets involved, they've already taken six weeks and then you have to give them their FMLA time. You end up giving the employee a lot more than you're entitled to. But so if you manage your policy so that any of the time taken for those reasons falls under those other provisions anyway, that can help protect the company.
Tim Cynova:
I want to ask you about pay transparency and pay equity. We've talked about and in other sessions around equity and equality being... We'll be talking about it in several other sessions about strict fixed your comp and ways that we can align our pay and compensation with our values.
Tim Cynova:
Many of us hold anti-racism, anti-oppression values, and there's a lot of questions about, can we just list everyone's salary, and then all of a sudden we're transparent? Or what might we want to be thinking about from a legal perspective as we engage in more transparency around what people make, and especially if there's a lot of people who are making different amounts for the same job?
Andrea Milano:
I think step one is probably to do some sort of equity analysis internally before you go public with anything. That is the employment lawyer and me speaking, but to protect the company, I think there are a lot of great resources available, and even some online calculators where you can plug things in and it'll show you statistically speaking, you have an issue here. This comp is problematic because there's no chance this could have happened, but for disparate impact.
Andrea Milano:
So I think it's important to be running those studies. I think it's also important to be communicating proactively with your employees that you're doing it right. There is not pay a quality or equity right now, and so acknowledging that and acknowledging that you're fixing it is the right first step. If people are doing the same job, arguably, they should be making the same money, except for very specific circumstances that you can justify. And I think employers are often looking to justify when maybe they should just be looking to even things out.
Andrea Milano:
So I think getting an analysis done generally by an outside company can be really helpful and eye-opening because your employees are thinking about it. It's such a hot button issue, everyone's thinking about it, everyone's talking about it. So even if you don't address it, that you're not hiding from it. And I think it's better to get out ahead of it.
Tim Cynova:
Andrea, as expected, this has been an amazing 45 minutes with you. I really appreciate it. It's been wonderful and amazing to watch you as you started to fill all of these questions. Thank you to all the questions that were coming in and the chat. Really wonderful. But Andrea, sincerely, thank you so much for being a part of the summit.
Andrea Milano:
Thank you, Tim. This was a pleasure. I'm really happy I could participate. Thank you everyone who attended and asked great questions, and this was awesome.
Tim Cynova:
Find more about the Ethnical Re-Opening Summit, including speaker bios and session recaps at work shouldn’t suck dot c-o backslash ethical hyphen reopening hyphen summit hyphen 2021.
If you’ve enjoyed the conversation — or are just feeling generous today — please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or 5 stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers.
Until next time, thanks for listening.
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Intentionality and Environmental Impacts (EP.48)
This past year saw the environmental impacts of the workplace shift dramatically. For many, travel for work was completely erased, both commuting and related business travel. Conferences that traditionally attracted hundreds or thousands of in-person attendees shifted to online offerings. As we consider how to reopen our workplaces, how can we do that in intentional ways that center our impact on planet and people?
Recorded
April 27, 2021
Last Updated
November 11, 2021
This conversation was recorded as part of Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit that took place on April 27, 2021.
This past year saw the environmental impacts of the workplace shift dramatically. For many, travel for work was completely erased, both commuting and related business travel. Conferences that traditionally attracted hundreds or thousands of in-person attendees shifted to online offerings. As we consider how to reopen our workplaces, how can we do that in intentional ways that center our impact on planet and people?
Resources mentioned during session:
Howlround’s Climate Change resources
“A Producer’s Guide to Measuring, Budgeting, and Lowering the Carbon Emissions of Livestreams and Video Conferences” by Vijay Mathew
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World by Jason Hickel
Guests: Krista Bradley, Alexis Frasz, Vijay Mathew
Moderator: Erin Woods
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
KRISTA BRADLEY is Director of Programs and Resources at the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), the national service organization for the performing arts presenting industry. At APAP she’s responsible for the professional development programming for the annual conference as well as year-round programs, leadership development initiatives, regranting programs and resources that advance the skills, knowledge and capabilities of APAP's membership. Prior to APAP, she was Executive and Artistic Director of BlackRock Center for the Arts, a nonprofit multidisciplinary arts center in Maryland, and Program Officer of Performing Arts for Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She brings more than twenty years of experience working in the nonprofit, performing arts, and philanthropy sectors as a curator, funder, arts administrator and consultant for organizations such as the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, the Walker Arts Center, Houston Grand Opera and Opera America. Krista is also a practicing musician, a current member of the Thomas Circle Singers, a DC-based choral ensemble, and a former board member of APAP. She holds a B.A. degree in Literature and Society from Brown University.
ALEXIS FRASZ is a researcher, writer, strategic thinker, program designer, and advisor to partners in culture, philanthropy, and the environmental sector working for transformative change and a just transition. She is a co-director of Helicon Collaborative and leads their work at the intersection of culture and the environment. Her perspective on systems change draws on her artistic practices and diverse background in anthropology, Chinese Medicine, permaculture, and Buddhism. She believes in the need to build solidarity between artists and culture and broader movements working for racial, ecological, and economic justice. Alexis also teaches on creative civic leadership for artists and non-artists, and is faculty for the cultural leadership program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative Climate Leadership program. Her research on socially engaged artistic practice has informed artist training curriculums and philanthropic programs worldwide. She is actively engaged in Helicon’s ongoing work to address inequities in cultural philanthropy. Alexis graduated Summa cum Laude from Princeton University with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and has pursued Master’s level study in Chinese Medicine. She is an advisor of the Public Bank East Bay, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and The Artist’s Literacy’s Institute. She lives in Oakland, where she spends as much time as possible in her garden.
VIJAY MATHEW is the Cultural Strategist and a co-founder of HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College, Boston, USA and is privileged to assist a talented team by leading HowlRound's development of commons-based online knowledge sharing platforms and the organization's notions of cultural innovation. Prior to his current position, he was the Coordinator for the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) New Play Development Program, as well as a Theater Communication Group (USA) New Generations Future Leader grant recipient in new work at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Vijay has a MFA from New School University, New York, a BA from University of Chicago, and an artistic background as an ensemble-based filmmaker and theatremaker. He is a board member of Double Edge Theatre located in rural Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA.
ERIN WOODS offers the enterprise equivalent of creative production, bridging strategy and execution for projects and organizations. Her work is focused on transformational, purposeful learning, sustainable travel and tourism, and arts, culture and community. She has an undergraduate degree in theatre from Colorado College, a Master’s in Communication from the University of Denver, and has participated in such systems-shifting programs as Getting to Maybe and Creative Climate Leadership. Whether on stage or backstage (though now mostly from the balcony), live theatre will always have her heart.
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) wears a multitude of hats, all in service of creating anti-racist workplaces where people can thrive. He is the Principal of the consulting group Work. Shouldn’t. Suck. and has deep knowledge and experience in HR and people-centric organizational design. He currently leads curriculum design in WSS’s areas of expertise: from sharing leadership and power to decolonizing the employee handbook and bylaws; talking with humans to how to hire. His book, Hire with Confidence, based on his experience leading hundreds of searches and “retooling” the traditional search process to center anti-racism and anti-oppression, is scheduled to be published in Winter 2021. In April 2021, he and WSS produced the Ethical Re-Opening Summit, a one-day online convening that explored the question, “How can we co-create a future where everyone thrives as we move into this next stage of a global pandemic?” In August 2021, Tim closed out his 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, the largest association of artists in the U.S., where he served in both the COO and Co-CEO roles, and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made this commitment in 2013. Additionally, he serves on the faculty of Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and The New School teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR; he's a trained mediator, and a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Also, during a particularly slow summer, he bicycled 3,902 miles across the United States.
Transcript
Alexis Frasz:
I think that we often, and I think this has been a miscalculation, actually, from the environmental movement initially where there was a lot of talk about sacrifice and what we need to give up, and I don't think that's untrue. I think there are things that we need to give up. But I'm one of those people that got a pandemic puppy. Okay? I want to say that I did give up a lot when I got my puppy and I gained a lot, and I think that that's the piece that's missing. So, it's like what if doing less is not actually a sacrifice? What if it actually gives us more?
One of the things, for example, that we've been told would really help the climate is actually working a four day work week. That also connects to worker wellbeing and having time to care for your family, and that means you spend less money on caring for your family. So, there's all sorts of proliferating effects that can happen from doing less. It's just not how our culture typically thinks about progress.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I’m Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that.
Earlier this year, podcasting's favorite co-host Lauren Ruffin and I produced Work Shouldn't Suck's Ethical Re-Opening Summit. The event took place online on Tuesday, April 27, and featured eight sessions, 25 amazing speakers, and covered a whole host of topics related to the ethical re-opening of workplaces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We raced to produce the Summit from start to finish in just three weeks as we felt the urgency and stress mounting as workplaces were in the midst of re-opening decisions. Several months on, we still feel the content is as necessary as ever, so we decided to release each of the sessions in podcast form.
In each of the eight sessions, you'll hear the conversations just as the Summit attendees did. As a reminder, in late April 2021, COVID vaccine distribution was just gaining speed and we had yet to begin hearing about the Delta variant. From that vantage point in time, it very much looked like by Fall 2021 things might be settling back into somewhat of a quote unquote normal routine. As I record this preamble in Fall 2021, that's not the case. We're now talking about break-through infections, booster shots, schools opening and closing again, hospital ICUs are packed in states across the U.S., and still how to safety gathering in indoors as the temperature again begins to drop with the change in seasons.
In this session: Intentionality and Environmental Impacts, the panel discusses how we can approaching reopening in intentional ways that center our impact on planet and people. Panelists include Krista Bradley, Alexis Frasz, and Vijay Mathew, with this discussion moderated by the amazing Erin Woods. So, over to you Erin...
Erin Woods:
I'm going to kick this off. My name is Erin Woods and I am ... Thanks, Kate. See, I've got some supporters in the crowd. I love it. I am, for a matter of visual description, a White woman with dark blonde hair, I'm wearing a pink blouse, and I'm in front of some mixed media art in my background, and I will ask the speakers when they introduce themselves to introduce themselves that way as well. But I'm calling in from my office in my home in Banff, Alberta, which is in Treaty 7 territory, the traditional home of the Stony Dakota, Tsuut'ina, Blackfoot, and Métis Region 3 peoples who have historically and continue to call this place home.
Erin Woods:
Banff has always been a place for migrants and immigrants, and so there are many of us who are very fortunate to live here. I think as we talk about intentionality in the environment, it's great just to remember that what we're talking about is place. We're talking about where we are. So, and Diane [inaudible 00:01:10] from The Netherlands even. So, it would be great as we do this, and people already are, just to put in the chat where you're calling from just so that we get a sense of where our community is joining us from, and I will hand it over to Krista maybe to introduce yourself and then we'll just do brief, brief introductions around, and then we'll dive into the meat of the matter.
Krista Bradley:
Sounds great. Hi, everybody. I'm Krista Bradley. I'm Director of Programs and Resources at the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. I'm calling you from my home in Silver Spring, Maryland outside of DC, and it's the traditional land of the Piscataway and the Pamunkey peoples. My pronouns are she/her/hers and I'm a Black woman with a dark purple shirt on and a gray sweater, a bright blue headband, blue glasses, sitting in front of my Peloton and a window with lots of plants. It's good to be with you.
Erin Woods:
Great. Thank you. Alexis?
Alexis Frasz:
Sure. I am Alexis Frasz. I am calling in from unseated Ohlone territory in Oakland, California. I am a light skinned woman with short, bleached blonde hair, it's kind of a Mohawk, and I'm wearing a black sweater and sitting in front of a couple of posters by Shepard Fairey. I work at Helicon Collaborative, which is an organization that focuses on the intersection of culture and the environment. We do a lot of things in that space, which I will talk about later.
Erin Woods:
Thanks, Alexis. Vijay?
Vijay Mathew:
Hi, everyone. My name is Vijay Mathew and my pronouns are he/him. A visual description of myself is I have brown skin, short black hair, and a little gray stubble. I'm wearing a black short sleeve shirt with a collar and my background is a white wall, and I'm calling from the Boston Metro Area, which is the land of the Massachusett and Pawtucket people. I'm a co-founder of HowlRound Theatre Commons, which is based at Emerson College in Boston, and it's a media publisher of essays and live streams that are produced by and for the professional performing arts community.
Erin Woods:
Great. Thank you. I'm imagining that most of this, my hope is that most of this will really be more of just a conversation, a dialogue because Vijay and Krista and Alexis all know each other. Certainly, in the chat, feel free to, any comments, and then there is also a Q&A. As you can see, there's a Q&A tab. So, we will do a Q&A section at the end. So, as questions come up, if you would plop them in there, that would be great. I'll try to keep an eye on those. But I would love to, by way of introductions, have each of the panelists talk about who they are, their work, where their work and this idea of intentionality in the environment, where that starts to intersect.
Erin Woods:
So, just sort of a workplace overview, as well as maybe a couple little tidbits about you that aren't reflected in your job description or in your title, a little something that we might want to know about you, and I'd love to see that in the chat from individuals as well. Where do you work, or if you're comfortable, what organization do you work for, and some other little nuggets about do you love French fries or are you double jointed or whatever that might be. So, maybe Alexis, will you kick us off with just a little bit more about Helicon and your work and a couple tidbits about you that we might not know?
Alexis Frasz:
Sure. Okay. So, I'll start with the tidbits so I don't forget them. I probably would. Let's see. I have a garden that I'm pretty obsessed with and have learned a little bit of permaculture. So, I try to apply that as best I can. I am a rock climber and I am learning how to build things, and I built a shed in my backyard, which I'm very proud of. But as far as Helicon, a few, maybe five or six years ago, we started really venturing into the environmental space and climate change. We came out of the arts.
Alexis Frasz:
So, really, the work that we do is at the intersection of culture and the environment, and that means that we really think of the environmental issues that we face, including climate change, as cultural issues, not primarily technological or scientific issues. That is a growing kind of perspective, I think, in the environmental sector broadly that we actually know many of the technical things we need to do, but how to change human behavior, how to move in a completely new way as a society is more of a social issue and a cultural issue than a technical one. Granted, science plays a big part in it. I'm not denigrating that.
Alexis Frasz:
So, the other piece of it is that because we came out of the cultural sector, we're really interested in the role of the culture and artist creative practices can play in helping to make that transition to re-talk about a just transition. That's the language that we like because we've always had equity as a focus of our work. Really, that means that whatever we do, the solutions protect and prioritize the people who are most impacted and focuses on making a better world for everybody. So, I guess I'll stop there for now.
Erin Woods:
Great. Thank you. Vijay, do you want to jump in on that to talk about your work and where intentionality in the environment and your work intersect, and some tidbits?
Vijay Mathew:
All right. Okay. So, tidbits. Let's see. I'm a parent to a 12 year old, I'm addicted to spicy food and must have it every day, and I'm almost completely free of all social media platforms. Liberated. So, okay. Then intersection with the work, so HowlRound Theatre Commons, its editorial agenda is to amplify progressive ideas and conversation and perspectives from performing artists themselves who are producing the essays and live streams. Unfortunately still, the climate emergency is actually a progressive and disruptive topic.
Vijay Mathew:
We have been publishing for several years incredible essays written by artist from around the world about their work at that intersection of performing arts and climate change, both about actual pieces that address that, as well as production methods and different systems of how the work comes into being that is aligned with different paradigms, and yeah. So, I'm coming at it from that perspective, and similar to what Alexis said, really seeing it as a cultural issue. It's a culture that created the crisis and it's culture that will mitigate or transition us into a different form. Yeah. So, and I'll just throw a link in there to our tag on climate change where you'll find essays and videos that artists have made themselves.
Erin Woods:
Great. Thank you. Krista, of course, the work that you do and climate change, or the emissions in any rate, can't be separated. So, certainly, you've been thinking about this a lot. So, I'd love to hear about work that you're doing where that intentionality and the environment intersect and some juicy tidbits about you also. They don't have to be juicy.
Krista Bradley:
I don't know. Juicy tidbits. I have become a plant mom during this COVID time and I started with one plant and now I have 15. So, I'm really enjoying that. I love to cook and I have been a choral ensemble singer for probably 25, 30 years. So, that is my thing, making music with people that you can't create on your own. So, how am I connected to this work? APAP is the service organization for the presenting, touring, and booking industry in the performing arts, and by that, I mean we support the people, the artists, the agents and managers, and the venues that provide the infrastructure for artists to connect with communities around the country and around the globe.
Krista Bradley:
By nature of the work of the live performing arts touring industry, we spend most of our time moving people and our work and our arts across boundaries, across states, across oceans, across continents. That in its nature is all about connecting artists with audiences, but the way that we do it right now is fairly extractive. The model that we've built are work on means that artists have to tour enormously to make a living and venues have to position themselves as interesting spaces where only certain artists go to.
Krista Bradley:
So, there's lack of an incentive to sometimes be as thinking in partnership and ways that you can connect with other like-minded colleagues to bring artist to your communities and to do it in a way that's longterm and not for one night. The other piece of what APAP does is we're one of the largest conveners of the performing arts industry every year. We have our APAP conference in New York typically. It usually attracts three to 4,000 people coming into the city and it's an important piece in the industry, in terms of gathering the field.
Krista Bradley:
However, it's also gathering a lot of people, making people travel a great deal to come to one place, and it puts out a lot of waste. So, both as a service organization trying to be a couple of steps ahead of the field and provide information, resources, support on how to do our work better, how to be sustainable as a field, and how to be just and equitable and accessible, the whole idea of being or interested in environmentally sound practices is really critical, and how do we think about our work differently now that we've had 13 months to have to reimagine how we work? So, I'll stop there.
Erin Woods:
Great. Thank you. I think all of you touched on this idea that a lot of what we're talking about is how do we stay connected with our communities? How do we share, whether it's art, or a lot of the people in joining us may be from arts organizations or maybe nonprofits more generally. But often, those organizations, their fundamental reason for being is connecting with community and connecting now in different, maybe more creative ways. So, I'd love to just have maybe an informal chat, Vijay, Alexis, and Krista, just about that, about what are we learning about connecting with community now that the old ways, for 13 months, we couldn't do, and we're coming to a real understanding of how damaging those ways might be? So, unmute yourselves. Discuss.
Alexis Frasz:
I can jump in just to kick it off. I think to some of the things Krista was mentioning, many of us have discovered not that there ... I don't want to minimize the real pain and suffering that's happened with COVID and the things that have been really difficult. I think that there have been things that we've discovered that are really valuable about not traveling as much, having more time with our families, getting into plants and gardening, connecting to our bodies in different ways, and I think also recognizing what really matters and how we're connected to our communities, that if our community is not well, we're not well.
Alexis Frasz:
I think that the arts, especially that so many businesses are like this, have become very disembodied, actually, that there's this idea that it's very mental, it's very global, and I think the pandemic forced us to be more local. My hope would be that we ... I think we will be forced to be more local in the future, whether we like it or not. But I think that there's also great potential to see that as an opportunity and something really beautiful, especially because we have these platforms where we can actually connect more broadly, but then really go deep in our local place.
Erin Woods:
Yep. Vijay, your thoughts about that sort of the global and local, because I know a lot of the work that you're doing is really about this streaming. How do we connect virtually?
Vijay Mathew:
Yeah, right. So, I think the pandemic, in a sense, created an uncontrolled collapse of a lot of our arts field, especially the touring and international presenting parts of it. It was a cold turkey kind of quitting of the major tool we use for international touring and presenting, which is air travel, fast travel, which there's no "green alternative" to. The industry itself has said that they can't develop carbon-free technology in any kind of timeline that's going to avert total catastrophe. So, there's that one thing.
Vijay Mathew:
So, hopefully, there's going to go from uncontrolled collapse to now continuing a controlled collapse and putting creative limitations like, for example, an organization stepping out in a very difficult way to say, "We're not going to travel anymore using airplanes," and using that as a creative prompt to really rethink basically everything about their purpose. Who are they serving? So, that's one aspect. Another aspect is during this pandemic, speaking from the perspective of HowlRound and publishing and performing arts artists wanting to connect and share ideas with each other, this has been an incredible moment for artists from the global South and global North to be in the same virtual space together like never before.
Vijay Mathew:
So, there's been some really incredible, just this kind of cultural mobility that happens in this virtual space that had never happened before, as well as breaking down of the ongoing decades long silos of the deaf performing arts community, deaf theater makers with the hearing community. It's still very, like what we heard in the first session, very siloed communities, and again, this virtual platform, platforms being able to break that down. So, those are very promising little beginnings of new paths and creative ways that we can rethink what we're doing.
Krista Bradley:
Yeah. Yeah. Building on both Vijay and Alexis' points, we've seen presenting organizations connect to audiences that they didn't know that they had and to reach a much more, a browner audience than they thought they had because there's less of a barrier and it's also been inspirational for artists to create work to reach a specific audience that may look like them in a different way without intermediary, which I think has been really interesting and bodes well for how we will be connecting directly with our audiences as artists. I think that's been a really great innovation.
Krista Bradley:
I think that artists, we've heard, at least, that they think that they can have a better balance in terms of making a living, that they don't have to travel so much and they can spend more time with their family and they can find new ways to connect with each other and make work in a virtual kind of way, and that's super exciting. I think for people that work in the performing arts as administrators, it is not necessarily very people friendly. We seem to prize long hours, extreme work, being in the theater for 18, 20 hours, not taking time off, etc. So, for workers in this industry, I think we've all realized that that's not only unsustainable, but it's not something that we really want to do again.
Krista Bradley:
So, how do we reimagine and advocate for a different way of working for us working in the cultural sector? Maybe not making work, but certainly supporting the work that does get made and recalibrate what we think is a just way to work for us in the arts and cultural sector, which I think is long overdue. Then to your point, Vijay, about accessibility and equity, we at APAP discovered that even with the conference, that our conference is an expensive conference. People cannot access it to the extent that they would like to, and yet, we attracted so many more people on the SwapCard platform this year that would never have been able to come.
Krista Bradley:
In fact, the leaders of organizations who are usually the ones that come to our conference invited and were able to give all of their staff access to thinkers and doers and mavericks that were talking about innovation, which was amazing. So, we in our practice realize that we can be much more accessible and inclusive and equitable and should be by pursuing a more hybrid model. So, those are some things that I'm seeing.
Alexis Frasz:
Can I just jump in with one thing to build on that, which isKrista Bradley:
Exactly. Good point.
Vijay Mathew:
I want to add to the workplace and work organization and how that's structured and how that's related to actually climate crisis, where the idea of extraction or costs or hidden costs or the costs of doing business that we put aside and we just let them happen, that's related to the workplace in that in organizations that have less of a hierarchy in terms of a rentier class of people, people on top who, no matter what they're doing, no matter what value they're creating for their organization, are always somehow extracting more wealth, more resources, more longevity, more opportunities, more resources than people lower in the hierarchy who may, for example, be artists, who are freelance, contractor, paid very little, who are struggling to just make basic ends meet, basic needs met.
Vijay Mathew:
So, that mindset that there can actually be, and that we all collectively accept this as a norm or it's normal that there is a rentier class in our nonprofit arts organizations, that's the same mindset that is also capable of allowing a climate emergency to run away out of our control, even to the point where it's truly on the table whether or not we're going to survive as a species or that our complex civilization is going to actually be something we can keep onto that's truly on the table. So, there's that mind shift, that change of perspective and change of culture that has to also infiltrate, and talking just from the arts, nonprofit organizations, they truly need to look into maybe the worker cooperative model or some other kind of system that is not just based on cheap, free labor.
Erin Woods:
It would be great, I would love, actually, to have you all three maybe talk just a little bit more about that, that it's kind of a bunch of times, that this is really about a cultural shift. It's not a technological problem. It's not about the science. It's actually about who we are and how we want to be in the world, and that what we value and what we think about as sustainable, not only in terms of the environment, but in terms of our own lives and our own selves and our neighborhoods, all of those cultural things, especially in response to some of the conversations I know that happened this morning about base camp and reverting to 1983.
Erin Woods:
So, if there is this movement, there's a pull to 1983 and there's a pull towards these possible futures. I would just love your thoughts about how we might weight the scales one way. Then also, since I've got the floor, if anybody's got questions, please do start to populate the Q&A section and we will start to field questions from all of you as well. So, thanks. The brilliant, the pull towards the future. Or what have we seen that's worked? Maybe it's not a massive shift to the future. Maybe it's just small little changes that, as Alexis says, aren't necessarily sacrifices. They're just shifts.
Alexis Frasz:
Yeah, and I don't want to minimize the scale of change. I think the reality is we are in, and entering more so, a time of accelerating change, and I think that we just need to come to terms with that as a society. Really, this question of whether we want to change or we don't want to change. It's just not an option. It's not our choice. We do get to chose how we want to meet that moment and I think for our own survival, as Vijay said, but also especially for justice because there are people ... Climate change has been presented as if it's this far away thing and I think more and more of us are dealing with, we have flooding, we have fires where I am in California that are extreme impacts on our quality of life and our ability to work, as if that's not the primary concern that most of us have when those thing are going on is whether or not we can work.
Alexis Frasz:
But they do affect our ability to work and to participate in our industry, whatever that may be. But we know that those things are going to continue to accelerate, at this point, regardless of what we do for a while. It isn't to say that our actions don't matter. They actually do quite a lot. So, I think there's one of the things in our culture, that it's characteristic of a consumer culture is that there's an immaturity and an innocence. Right? This is being talked about a lot in the racial justice work that is also becoming to the fore in our culture. But it's like there's no excuse for not knowing what we should know at this point. So, the question is really how are we going to participate in that?
Alexis Frasz:
I think, I remember, actually, this happened at Banff, Erin, when we first met. There was an environmental guy. I was part of an environmental meeting. This was probably seven or eight years ago. I remember this guy who worked in the environmental sector and he was recounting this experience he had talking to one of his friends about what he did and thinking, yeah, we're really having this great dialogue about climate change, and after they finished the conversation, he said, "Well, good luck with that. I really hope you make some progress on that," and it's like it was his issue. I think that we need to recognize it's a context for all of our issues, no matter what you care about. It's a context in which we live.
Alexis Frasz:
I think that creates a lot of opportunity for empowerment, actually, around what we can do. We are both potentially leaders of organizations or staff members, we are consumers, we are voters, we are role models, we're parents. So, thinking much more broadly, [inaudible 00:28:42] just about ourselves as consumers, but as citizens really, not using the negative connotation for that term, but really participants in and responsible for the future of our society and our world. So, yeah.
Krista Bradley:
I'm really interested in leadership because it just keeps popping up, because this march that we're on is inevitable, as Vijay knows, and adaptation to the climate emergency and to a very different reality that's quickly approaching, I think, is going to be so critical. So, how are we leading from the middle? How are we leading cooperatively? Vijay, the comment you made about different work structures and flattened hierarchical work structures and thinking about cooperatives. I'm just wondering how those could play, or that model could play a role in leading change and moving away from that individual person that's, whatever, trying to drive change.
Krista Bradley:
Change, I think, comes from more mass movements of like-minded people who are making small or medium sized calls for change or just coming up with different guidelines or ways to work that even in their own small sector or small organization, and Kate, I have worked for a number of small organizations, so I totally see and appreciate that challenge about trying to maintain change, and I think what's helped me is being able to network and create a collaborative of people who are all working towards that as ways to learn from and to cheer on and continue to move things forward, because I do believe in the power of that kind of collective movement and cohort groups making change. So, I just wanted to raise that up in terms of the whole leadership piece.
Erin Woods:
No, I think that that's great. Vijay, you also, though, in addition to the individual, the smaller collective grassroots movements, you also have talked about radical operational changes. So, where do those play together perhaps?
Vijay Mathew:
Oh, yeah. Well, I think it, when we ... Let me get my thoughts together. There's something about how when we live in a specific system, whether it's our workplace or just in our greater economy, and we've been called as consumers, these systems really impact the way that we relate to each other. Despite our own personal intentions or values, these systems seem to always trump ... The ideology and the values embedded in these systems always seem to trump our individual of will. So, if we're able to live and create new structures in our workplaces and in the world outside of our workplaces, it will bring out better things in us as people, I think. So, that's an important aspect and that's incredibly related to the system, the capitalist consumer system, colonial system that has created the climate crisis. So, those are all very related.
Vijay Mathew:
The other thing is that, getting back to a point I think Krista made about disruptions, also Alexis, these disruptions that are going to be ongoing, continued crises that are localized or global, pandemic or whatever, that our impulses to collaborate and to take care, to really start to do the work of caring for each other is incredibly important, and the cultures and systems we inhabit will bring that out in us so that we can do that better. I think that's really on way the arts can go is to really see how they can actually be a caring entity in their community, both local and virtual. Then practically, what that means is if you're not, for example, doing accessibility practices for your online events, that's a good and quick place to start.
Alexis Frasz:
Yeah. I think that's a really ... So many points are so important that you're making, and there's a really great book that just came out recently called Less is More by this anthropologist called Jason Hickel, and one of things that they've found and that he writes about in that book is that democratic governance is always associated with better care for people and the environment when any group, it's not just democratic political systems, which we don't actually have and we know that, but when people are collectively able to make decisions together for the good of the whole, then make the right decision.
Alexis Frasz:
So, I think that really speaks to the point about changing structures, and it seems like it's not necessarily related to Kate's question. There may be things that don't seem like they're ... You may not be able to afford putting solar panels on the roof of your building. But you can practice more democratic decision making, and many small organizations already do. So, I think that also, if you do look through and do an audit of your activities and look for ways that you can minimize your harm, also look for ways that you might be able to maximize your benefit and places where maybe you already are. Like many artists, there are artists who fly all the time and go around the world and use a ton of carbon. But most artists that I know in my local community live pretty modest lives.
Alexis Frasz:
So, to ask them to really cut back more is probably not the best bang for the buck in terms of what we're looking at here, which is not to say everybody should do their part, and whatever you can do, great. But if you already take the subway, if you already live in a house with multiple people, you're ahead of the game in a lot of ways. So, I think that we also need to think about really looking at the places where there's the most bang for the buck, and in both those senses, in terms of reducing harm, but also human beings have this capacity to have an impact beyond our species size. We have an impact on everything else. So, a concept that I mentioned, permaculture, in the beginning, a concept that permaculture is maximize your impact, actually, not minimize it. But do it for good, not for evil, and with intentionality.
Krista Bradley:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Maximize your impact. I guess it could be misconstrued. But I really get in the context that you're using.
Erin Woods:
Do you have anything else along those lines, Krista, that you just ... Because I think there was a question in the Q&A about that that actually might relate to this maximizing your impact idea is that in organizations, do we have some thoughts, yes, on what we can do individually? How do we get more democratic decision making? Some of these big ... Do we just try to blow it up? Do we make incremental change? Do we have time for incremental change? What is a transformative process, a practical way to think about organizational shifts, if you've maybe seen some examples or have some ideas or some case studies?
Vijay Mathew:
Well, I think the quickest way for any shift to happen in the nonprofit arts is if funders actually make policies that actually mandate certain things. You literally can change the field overnight if that happens. That's the lever to pull.
Krista Bradley:
Agree more, Vijay. That's how our infrastructure is designed, that people need incentives to change, and I don't think it's incremental, frankly. I'm tired of incremental change. I'm tired of incremental change around racial justice, gender justice, disability justice, trans justice. It's like, we have all waited way too long and now you just need to blow it up, and the way to blow it up is to have the accomplices of our funding partners who are already taking major steps to take the corpus of their money and put it in a different place, and you see how that's shifting tons of ways that people are making decisions about who they're hiring or what organizations are thriving, or at least not failing because they've been under-resourced for so long and we now are beginning to get some just investments. So, yeah. Funders are really critical to this, and not incrementally. That's no how you make change, at least not right now, I don't think. We don't have time.
Alexis Frasz:
I have so many mixed feelings about this. I agree. I think that funders have outsized influence and can put pressure. In fact, many of you may know already of a group called Julie's Bicycle in the UK and they have been very successful at encouraging and working with organizations in the UK to develop sustainability plans because they had to as a condition of funding from The Arts Council of England, which funds everybody, whereas our funding system doesn't really work quite as ... I don't know enough about Canadian ... I know there's some Canadians on the call. I don't know enough about the system there to know whether that would work. But I think that pressure can be put.
Alexis Frasz:
I think one of the things that was really interesting to me about their work is that just developing the plan for sustainability, that was the requirement. You didn't have to deliver on it. You actually just had to develop the plan and submit it. Just doing that, people actually did start to do things, even though they didn't have to, and the wellbeing and sense of employee satisfaction in the organizations increased. There's a lot of ways that we could interpret why. To me, I think there's something about being in integrity with the truth of what we know. Some scientists have talked about there being this way that we're all operating in a sense of denial.
Alexis Frasz:
Those of us who believe in climate change are still operating in a sense of denial because we acknowledge it on the one hand and then we say, "Well, yeah, but I do need to fly to that really important conference because I've been invited to do the keynote," or whatever it is. Go visit my friend in Mexico or something like that. So, we make those kinds of compromises all the time and so it means that we don't take it as seriously as it actually is. So, I think there is something that feels really aligning and good on an inner level to be operating in alignment with the reality that we know is true.
Vijay Mathew:
One thing that I think would be a good partnership between organizations and funders is trying to solve this issue that Alexis, you bring up, of one's career advancement or progress in one's field is right now aligned with mobility and your ability to travel, an ability to be in places, the ability to take airplanes. There is a way. I don't know what it is, but we would be in the correct structure or a structure that is less harmful if we can figure out how to decouple career advancement from fast travel.
Krista Bradley:
That's really so insightful. I'd never even made those connections. But you're absolutely right. Right? How is that equitable, first of all, and access to movement and career advancement, it is limited to of the few that have the ability to do that. So, thanks for raising that. That's really insightful.
Erin Woods:
Yeah, and what's striking me too that's come out of this conversation is the lever to pull, the funder lever, the big lever, but there are also these smaller cracks in systems that maybe we can start to think about, well, okay, maybe we can just change our hiring practices or we don't make people go to conferences as often or are there smaller little shifts institutionally while we're also keeping an eye on the big things? But then just writing a sustainability plan actually leads to employee wellness is not a thing you would know, but it's the right thing to do.
Erin Woods:
So, I think that that also comes back to doing the right thing often leads to more right things, which is maybe a little bit fluffy, but also really quite practical. So, any other last questions in the group or thoughts about other practical approaches or maybe a few words of wisdom or resources that that panelists would like to leave? We've had a couple of URLs and the Less is More book mentioned already. Closing thoughts?
Alexis Frasz:
Yeah. I guess I would just say I think I would ... This is a really good question. I didn't see it from more about the practical approach and do we shut our organizations? As much as I do think some change can happen from above, it's both top down, but it's also bottom up, and I really think that we're seeing this with the racial justice work right now where it's become unacceptable to have certain people on your board, to say certain things. It's slower than any of us would like, but I do see this tide turning. So, I also think that artists, grassroots groups can put pressure on the above with setting the culture. So, I think that's possible.
Alexis Frasz:
But I also think that one really important thing, and I hate to leave on a down note, so someone else will have to fill in, is to plan for adaptation as well because just like with COVID, with the wildfires, there are going to be these things happening and for small groups and artists, really understanding what the issues are in your place and connecting with other people who can help to build resilience around those things.
Erin Woods:
Thanks, Alexis. I don't know if a famous person said this, but I did hear that art is adaptation plus imagination. I wrote that down somewhere. So, kind of an interesting idea. But Vijay, Krista, last thoughts?
Vijay Mathew:
Yeah. Just a quick little tiny project I've been working on that I'm very excited about. It's just, this is basically a carbon emissions calculator for streaming media. Just launched it, and it's basically an awareness tool, awareness tool about the costs of our activity and it masquerading as math and sciences. [inaudible 00:44:58]. But yeah. It's just a site that may be helpful. The intention there is for people in organizations who are thinking of tapering their travel, tapering their carbon emitting travel to use this kind of tool or some kind of tool to create a tapering budget of carbon emissions, alongside their actual financial budgets.
Erin Woods:
That's great. Thank you. Yeah. Another level, for sure, budgets. Definitely. Krista, your last word from [crosstalk 00:45:35].
Krista Bradley:
Oh, I think the glass is always half full because we work in a field with a lot of creative people who are passionate about caring for one another and for this Earth. So, I have no doubt that there will be change where it's need and I'm inspired by this conversation and my colleagues and really hope it's been useful for everybody else. I'm hoping that we can create more tools, like the tool that Vijay's talking about, the tools and structure that Julie's Bicycle created. I think we need language, we need tools in our field to help build that awareness and to give us steps for how we can make incremental and seismic change. So, I'm hopeful that will happen and look forward to partnering ways to make that happen.
Erin Woods:
Thank you all so much. Vijay, Krista, Alexis, thank you for joining me. Thank you for everyone else on the call, on the session.
Alexis Frasz:
Thank you, Erin.
Erin Woods:
Oh, you're welcome. I'm looking forward to-
Krista Bradley:
Yeah. Thanks, Erin.
Erin Woods:
... Work Shouldn't Suck and what they come up with next. This is going to be, this talk about a movement. Talk about some commitments. Yeah. Work Shouldn't Suck. It shouldn't be bad for the environment. It shouldn't be bad for its employees. So, I think this kind of movement is, we're part of it and it's exciting to be here. So, thank you all. Thanks for joining us.
Tim Cynova:
Find more about the Ethnical Re-Opening Summit, including speaker bios and session recaps at work shouldn’t suck dot c-o backslash ethical hyphen reopening hyphen summit hyphen 2021.
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