Your Brain at Work

The Right Way to Approach DEI Today

Episode Summary

Getting leaders to engage in learning is one of the central changes for HR and talent functions. During times of intense change, this can often appear to be less important, when in fact it may be even more critical. Yet, how can we engage busy, goal focused leaders in deeper thinking when they already feel overwhelmed? In this timely conversation, explore insights from both the science and decades of practice, including the non-obvious downsides of making learning mandatory, and a set of three focuses for making experiences truly compelling.

Episode Transcription

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Erin Wickham: Hello, everyone! Welcome to your brain at work! Live! I will give us all a couple seconds to get out of the waiting room and into the main session. We're expecting quite a few of you today, excited for all of you to be here, and thankful that you made the time.

 

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Erin Wickham: I'll give it just a couple more seconds to get people out of the waiting room and connected while we're waiting to get kicked off. If you want to share in the chat where you're calling in from. It's always great to see where everyone is joining from the webinar. We have quite a global presence so exciting. I see New York. Thank you, Emma

 

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Erin Wickham: Connecticut. Excellent!

 

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Erin Wickham: All right. Welcome back to another week of your brain at work. Live! I'm your host, Erin Wickham, Senior Director of Insight Design at the Neuro Leadership Institute

 

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Erin Wickham: for our regulars. We're happy to have you back, and for our newcomers welcome. We're excited to have you with us today. For the 1st time in today's episode, we'll discuss how neuroscience developed frameworks can revolutionize the way organizations mitigate bias and foster an inclusive culture without backlash. This is the 1st in a new series of De and I focused webinars where we'll be discussing the right way to approach De and I today more information on the schedule at the end

 

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Erin Wickham: of today's session.

 

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Erin Wickham: as I quickly share some housekeeping notes, drop in the chat as you are doing where you're joining in from today. So we can build some of that relatedness. We do suggest that you put your phone on. Do not disturb and quit your email and messaging apps. So you can get the most out of today's conversation. We love interaction. So feel free to share your thoughts and comments in the chat as well.

 

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Erin Wickham: Time to introduce our speakers. For today. Our 1st guest is the global head of De and I, the Neuro Leadership Institute as a global speaker, facilitator, author, and consultant. She helps businesses, dismantle systemic inequality to leverage the power of diversity. She broke barriers as one of the 1st Black Sea level speechwriters in the Fortune 100. Her 3 Ted presentations, challenging businesses to get serious about inclusion have collectively nearly 3 million views. A warm welcome to Janet Stovall.

 

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Erin Wickham: Hi, Janet!

 

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Janet Stovall: Hello! Good to be good to be here. Looking forward to this.

 

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Erin Wickham: Good to see you our second guest today. You'll know him well coined the term neural leadership when he co-founded Nli over 2 decades ago, with a professional doctorate for successful books under his name, and a multitude of bylines ranging from the Harvard Business Review to the New York Times. A warm welcome to our co-founder and CEO at the Neural Leadership Institute, Dr. David Rock.

 

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Erin Wickham: Hi, David.

 

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David Rock: Thanks, Aaron. Great great, to be back with you.

 

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Erin Wickham: Great to have you back. And finally, our moderator holds a Phd. In neuroscience from New York University. She leads the research team at the Neuroleadership Institute, where she focuses on translating cognitive and social neuroscience into actionable solutions for organizations. A warm welcome to our senior director of research, Dr. Emma Saro Hi Emma.

 

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Emma Sarro: Hi Erin! Thanks for having me. Hi, David! Hi, Janet! Nice to be here with you.

 

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David Rock: Hey? Thanks for joining us. Great conversation today.

 

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Emma Sarro: Yeah. Well, for everyone on the line, I'm sure many of you are thinking about how. How can you really have an impact on diversity, equity and inclusion in your organization, while at the same time minimizing any of the potential negative reactions across any of your stakeholders

 

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Emma Sarro: at the Neuro Leadership Institute. We have been thinking about this question for more than a decade more than I've been here closely following the science, experimenting, analyzing the data. And what we find is that the right approach is really to focus on what do we all have in common our complex brains, starting at the source and using that to understand human behavior and the right way to build

 

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Emma Sarro: build real habits and give people evidence-based, simple strategies that we can scale to everyone.

 

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Emma Sarro: So we've done it. We've taught it to millions, and today it is more relevant than ever. So keep in mind in the face of real data, while it might feel like, you know, this challenge is insurmountable. What the data shows is that 80% of companies are not cutting back. And in fact, 10% might even be increasing. This is great news.

 

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Emma Sarro: And today we're going to help you truly follow the science. And as Erin mentioned, this is the kickoff to a 5 part series over the next month, so we'll show you our plan later on in the session, but really want to get into this discussion with you both. I'm going to kick it off to Janet first.st What do we know for sure about the real business benefits of a well-run Dei strategy.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, we know that they are real, and we know that they can be significant. A 2022 Harvard Business Review article called how and where diversity drives financial performance confirmed that it said that companies with above average total diversity enjoyed 19% higher innovation revenues, and that to me, indicates a clear link between diversity and financial success. But what's particularly interesting about it is the financial advantage isn't just limited to big companies or specific industry. The pattern

 

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Janet Stovall: is across the board from small businesses to global corporations.

 

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Janet Stovall: And whatever's across a lot of different sectors. What this tells us is that Dei is not just a nice to have, but a fundamental driver of business success in today's world.

 

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Janet Stovall: And of course, financial performance is just one piece of that puzzle. Dei also has a profound impact on employee engagement and retention, and also from the Harvard Business Review. There's proof that employees with a strong sense of belonging experience, a 56% increase in their job performance and a 50% decrease in turnover risk. A glassdoor survey said that 76% of employees and jobs

 

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Janet Stovall: seekers are looking for a diverse workforce, and they consider that important factor in evaluating companies and job offers. And so not only does Dei contribute to a healthier bottom line.

 

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Janet Stovall: It also creates a more engaged and more committed workforce, and that is essential for any company that intends to be around for any period of time.

 

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Janet Stovall: and that in turn leads to a better key benefit. And I know we're going to talk more about that. That's better decision making

 

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Janet Stovall: diverse teams

 

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Janet Stovall: make better decisions. They bring a wider, wider range of perspectives and experiences. And they avoid group think, and they can make better decisions. And there's research to back that up. We're going to share some of that. But at the end of the day, when we look at the big picture, it's clear that the diversity that we have diversity is not a problem to solve. It's something that solves problems.

 

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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely.

 

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Emma Sarro: How do you feel about that, David?

 

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David Rock: Yeah, it's it's it's such an interesting

 

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David Rock: thing like. And we'll get into this in a minute. Sort of, you know, with so much data. Why isn't it everywhere, you know? But we'll get into that in a second. But there is so much data. In fact, we synthesized it a few years ago into 4 categories that there's just so many studies showing that you know, a well-run Dei strategy will impact financial performance has separately, like innovation benefits, you know. Thirdly, like.

 

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David Rock: go to market benefits, and fourthly, like talent, pool benefits right? And we could unpack each of those. But you know, really good diverse strategy means you're getting the best possible people or not. The best possible people from, you know half the country, right as an example of talent, pool benefits. And there's just, you know, reams of research on all of those 4 categories. And you know we've got that in a in a briefing, in an executive briefing. If you want to bring us in to help convince your Ceos. And

 

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David Rock: you know, C-suite, we can kind of walk through like pages and pages of studies on each one. But it's it's just interesting, that sort of despite such an amazing amount of data. It's it's not necessarily ubiquitous. But we'll, you know, we'll get into that. But the the research is so clear that a well run Dei strategy impacts business performance really powerfully in 4 completely different categories.

 

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Emma Sarro: Right. So if it's so helpful, then so why do we need to keep focusing on it?

 

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David Rock: Maybe I'll take that 1st and go to Janet. We've got lots of different perspectives on this for me. There's sort of one study that tells this story really clearly, and it's a piece we wrote in Hbr

 

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David Rock: in a couple of years back, and we had this 2 part series, and we'll talk about both papers. But this 2 part series we wrote I wrote it with in partnership with Heidi Grant while she was with us, and it was such an interesting study, but the piece we wrote is called Diverse Teams feel less comfortable, and that's why they perform better.

 

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David Rock: And in this piece that we wrote, my team will put it in the chat in a minute. Sorry about the broken link. They fixed it now. But in in this piece we basically showed studies that people in diverse teams actually don't just feel uncomfortable, but that that discomfort is is a necessary condition to get the benefits

 

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David Rock: of Dei. So now, of course, there's a degree of discomfort, right? So it shouldn't be overwhelming, and it shouldn't just be like everyone's just back slapping and agreeing with each other as well. Right? There's a certain kind of amount of discomfort that's a necessary. It's a necessary, not unnecessary. It's a necessary condition

 

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David Rock: for the benefits of Dei discomfort. But the second thing in that paper that was so important and really hit me was that people in diverse teams, diverse and inclusive teams

 

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David Rock: actually feel like they're being less effective while they're being more effective.

 

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David Rock: right? And not only that, they, they feel less confident in their work while they're being more effective.

 

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David Rock: And it was, you know, so interesting to see that it's like, Wow, that's really fascinating. So whenever people think about a diverse team, they're going to go. Well, this isn't a good idea.

 

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David Rock: right? They just like their intuitive response is going to be like, well.

 

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David Rock: thinking about. You know, all these different people having to explain myself more, having to understand people, more, having to work harder. It doesn't sound like fun. And so intuitively, people, I think, vote with what the research says, which is that it doesn't necessarily feel good in the moment. And that's not because you go slower. It's not because the actual work is harder.

 

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David Rock: It's a. And we wrote about this. It's basically a thing called cognitive elaboration is that you do work harder to explain yourself and understand each other.

 

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David Rock: And people equate that with bad. Actually, it's the source of the benefits. It's 1 of the sources of the benefits. So that so we'll put that in the chat. It's such an important article. Diverse teams feel less comfortable. That's why they perform better. So I always anchor on that. That for me, is like, yeah, of course, anyone thinking about increasing diversity goes not so sure. It doesn't feel like it's going to make things better, actually does.

 

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David Rock: I'm going to make a really inappropriate metaphor. I apologize in advance, but put it down to me, being Australian, but it's like the reverse of alcohol. Alcohol makes you feel like you're smarter while you're becoming less intelligent. Diversity makes you feel less intelligent while you're actually becoming more intelligent, like, I said, inappropriate metaphor.

 

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Janet Stovall: That's not too bad. You you could have been.

 

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Emma Sarro: Much.

 

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Janet Stovall: Much better than we thought was coming. We thought something much worse was coming. So we're good.

 

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David Rock: Over to you, Janet. Why isn't it ubiquitous from your perspective?

 

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Janet Stovall: Well

 

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Janet Stovall: for exactly what you said, because it's disruptive, and people don't like disruption. I mean, there's no way that you could say. It's just logical. That being in a room with people who are exactly like you is easier dealing with people who think like you is easier. It's just not as effective, and I think one of the biggest issues that is making diversity, equity, and inclusion work

 

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Janet Stovall: difficult is because it became formulaic to a great extent, and it became sort of homogeneous. But diversity, equity, and inclusion is anything but that. I mean, in fact, few things are more dynamic than demographics. Identity. The world. Changing systems and approaches have to change, too. And so the ubiquity is going to change because things don't change. Diversity is there.

 

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Janet Stovall: It's far from ideal. We don't. It's not what we want, but it has had some success in the business world. What we haven't quite nailed, and why it's not ubiquitous is because we haven't nailed the inclusion part, and if you have true inclusion, it becomes a part of the fabric of an organization, and it's not as disruptive. It's just the way of doing business. So I think that that is why it is still disruptive, because we haven't focused on the right things.

 

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David Rock: Great thanks. Jen.

 

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Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And this just makes me think, you know, when David was talking about how uncomfortable diversity or really inclusion is right, you can put people in the same room. But it is. We have these normative influences we don't want to be disagreed with. It's uncomfortable to be disagreed with, and we just don't. And so we naturally avoid that. And so it does take intention. It takes it takes a set of habits. It takes really thinking about

 

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Emma Sarro: encouraging those diverse perspectives being okay when something is not what we're thinking about. Yeah.

 

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David Rock: It's like no one, no one goes. Oh, I'm going to have a fun night out tonight. I'm going to invite a whole bunch of people who see the world really differently and disagree with me on everything. And we're all going to go and have a drink like people don't do that they go. I'm going to invite a whole bunch of people who think like me. We have lots in common. We see the world the same way. We're all going to go and have a great time, and it's the same thing kind of in the workplace. No one goes. Oh, I'm going to put a team together of people where there's some friction, it's actually super necessary

 

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David Rock: for that. And way back in Apple's early days Steve Jobs did a really interesting talk about that that like you've got to have this creative friction. It's got to be just the right amount. And diversity provides some really healthy and helpful creative friction in there.

 

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Janet Stovall: How are you gonna build anything new or different? If you don't have somebody who thinks new and different, I mean.

 

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David Rock: Get into that. Let's get into that. I think that's the next kind of question like, what what's the

 

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David Rock: the mechanism of this, I think, is always.

 

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Emma Sarro: Right.

 

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Emma Sarro: and I think what Janet is really leaning towards is diversity is one step, but it's the action of inclusion, right? There's studies that are coming out now that are talking about how just throwing a bunch of people in a room isn't going to get you that outcome, that you want those new ideas. It's really that. What do you do in the room? How do you make sure all of those voices are heard? How do you make sure all those perspectives. So it's really that. What do you do with inclusion? And so this kind of leads to?

 

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Emma Sarro: The next question is, so we have this, these Dei programs. But sometimes they don't actually lead to benefits. So how does this happen

 

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Emma Sarro: for either one of you.

 

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David Rock: I mean, I'm happy to take that first.st I've got a couple of kind of quick points, but there's, I mean, there's 1 really, really really important thing that companies get wrong. I don't know the percentage. We should maybe research that one day. But there's a really really important thing which is non intuitive, and that is, if you mandate

 

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David Rock: Dei programs, it's probably the odds from a percentage like from just a sort of rational perspective. The odds are, you know, greater than 50%, that it's going to do nothing or make things worse.

 

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David Rock: I'll say that again, if you mandate a Dei program, whether it's bias or inclusion, or speaking out, whatever

 

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David Rock: you mandate, that there's a really strong likelihood greater than than 50%, that it's going to make things worse. And there's a there was a big hbr piece by Frank Jobins on this, but we also wrote a piece on this in strategy and business that the headline is something like, you know, are your diverse are your diversity programs making people more biased. And there's there's really good evidence that mandating, you know, bias programs makes things worse.

 

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David Rock: And we were going to shout that from the rooftops in the early days we've been working on bias mitigation, for you know, more than a decade, and we were going to shout that from the rooftops like don't educate people about bias unless you have an actual way of reducing it, because

 

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David Rock: general education tends to make it worse, and we'll get more into that later. But

 

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David Rock: my point here I'm trying to get to the point is mandated. Dei programs can make things worse. So and that's really not intuitive. Right is a lot of people say, Well, if you don't mandate it, people won't do it because they're not interested. It's really important that we unpack in that paper. We'll put the link in now. So how that works? There we go. Thanks, Tony. It's in the chat now. But the Cliff note there is. People get really annoyed at being told how to think, and most people think that they're very inclusive. Most people have a felt sense that they have no.

 

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David Rock: and that everyone else does. In fact, that's being studied. People believe everyone else is really biased and they're not. It's actually a cognitive constraint and sort of the way we see the world, not arrogance or narcissism. It's just like people don't see their own bias. But they can see other people's bias because of the brain structure. So just, you know, putting this mandated training on people is not healthy. So that's 1 of the big, you know, really, really big

 

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David Rock: knows. And then, Janet, over to you, I think you know, the point on inclusion is really really important as well.

 

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Janet Stovall: Absolutely. I mean at the end of the day, if you don't have inclusion, you can actually never leverage the diversity that you go through all this trouble to acquire. But you have to kind of define inclusion. People have to understand that it is a tangible thing that there are habits involved, because otherwise people think it's just hugs and being nice to people. And that's not what it is at all. And to your point, if we don't, if we force people to do things. If we don't design the Dei work thoughtfully and strategically.

 

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Janet Stovall: you get the exact opposite, you get division, you get resentment. You get people who think you're just checking a box, and then you got cynicism. You got resistance, and all the work you're doing doesn't count. But a strategic approach can help that. And that means setting clear goals, engaging employees, providing the training and being transparent about the progress and continuously evaluating and improving the program.

 

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Janet Stovall: I wrote about this, I think, a year ago or so in fast company and well, I have 2 that in fast company I can't remember which one it was, but they have it in the don't drop it in the chat. But basically you have to understand what your why is. You need to understand what your motivation is. You got to make it voluntary, because if you mandate it, you trigger the defensiveness, and so it should be voluntary, and it should be compelling.

 

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Janet Stovall: And then you have to measure the outcomes. You have to be able to track something and understand, you know, get our people actually changing their behavior. Do you know that? And if they're not, then you have to go back and iterate and figure out what you need to do? But that's just a strategic way of doing it. And if you do that, then yeah, people will get involved with it. People will do it, but you can't force them to do it. I agree, and I didn't always believe that when I came to Nli 4 years ago, if you had said that to me, I would have pushed back on you mightily.

 

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Janet Stovall: But I have come around to believing that it's absolutely true.

 

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David Rock: We all learn from each other, from shifting, from mandatory to compelling. And, in fact, that was going to be the session today. Some of you maybe saw the switch we were going to do that, we thought, no, this is actually a more important topic. But we will come back to that topic in a month or so. You know how you shift from mandatory to compelling across any kind of learning solution is really important, and we'll come back to some of your comments, Janet, around how the strategy works for this a little bit later, as we talk about the system

 

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David Rock: in here. But I I just just want to make one other quick comment. I think the you know the the sort of

 

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David Rock: But let's go on. I'll go back to you, I'll come back to it.

 

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Emma Sarro: We're going to dive into how to make something compelling. I was thinking that I was thinking the same thing, but that's it speaks really well to what? What we want to drive here, but to move on to you know how like getting back to the benefits? How do they actually work from David, a neuroscience, perspective.

 

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David Rock: Yeah, it's really interesting. So this is something we've been studying for a long time.

 

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David Rock: And it's been. It's been kind of fascinating to me and all our researchers like, how does this work? And so so there's 1 perspective, you could say, well, it just makes people more engaged because they have more interesting people around. And there's this sort of mixed data on that. And you can look at look at the business case data and say, Well, what's the mechanism of that? And it it's easiest to understand this at a team level.

 

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David Rock: And so so what it's doing is is greater diversity with inclusion is increasing. Team IQ, right? So there is a team IQ that has a lot of parallels with individual IQ, there's studies showing it's actually pretty constant over time.

 

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David Rock: It's variable between teams. So you get different team IQ, and it generalizes to different kinds of tasks, you know, provided projects are not just requiring one person. There really is a team. IQ. And what we find is that good diversity with good inclusion increases. Team IQ. And lots of different researches have come at the same insight from many, many different angles. But that's the 1st thing to understand.

 

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David Rock: It's not that like people sell more or people are happier, more. It's like, literally, the IQ of a team is is higher. And then we looked at. Okay, so how and why does that happen? Firstly, is it in a particular area? And we looked at this. And what we saw is that actually fascinating? You might imagine that diversity just increase in inclusion increases like

 

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David Rock: kind of creativity, because people see different perspectives and have different experiences. And that's true. It does increase like non.

 

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David Rock: linear thinking. It does actually improve creativity for sure. But it also improved linear thinking. So linear problem solving. And it also improved surprisingly. Error detection. Maybe that's the least surprising ones. I think about it because people sort of, you know, checking more thoroughly. But error, detection, linear thinking and creative thinking is literally now all kinds of thinking right? Those are the 3 types of thinking that teams can do. They can be logical. They can find problems

 

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David Rock: so they can get creative. And so what we found in the in the research is that good diversity inclusion increases all 3.

 

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David Rock: Right now then, you say, how and why? How does this actually happen, and I sort of hinted at it earlier. The mechanism is scientifically, is called cognitive elaboration.

 

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David Rock: and cognitive elaboration is a bit of a mouthful is a long phrase for people working harder to understand themselves, and so understand other people and explain themselves. That was ironic.

 

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David Rock: People working much harder to explain themselves and understand each other. And the interesting thing is, the brain equates that with hard work, which means it's a threat which means people try to avoid it right? But it's literally like seeing things from different angles, like going a few clicks down, having fewer assumptions challenging the assumptions. We wrote a piece on this. In fact, we had a whole webinar on this some years ago that was fascinating. So my team can find that at some point, put in the chat. But it's basically this cognitive elaboration

 

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David Rock: and cognitive elaboration. Don't try and say it fast too many times like I am is kind of the opposite of social loafing.

 

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David Rock: right and social loafing a fun term that basically means in a homogeneous team. People just accept other people's ideas and don't challenge and sort of you get groupthink is another sort of another type of social loafing. So groupthink social loafing is sort of just letting things fly. Cognitive elaboration is, you know, just working harder on the ideas.

 

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David Rock: both as they come in and as they go out in your brain, and the result of that, if you have diverse perspectives is better. You know, linear problem solving error, detection and creativity. So that's the mechanism from my perspective. It's really solid.

 

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David Rock: And when we've explained this to, you know, C-suites, particularly in 2021. They're like, Oh, okay, that actually makes sense. And then you tie that with the piece on, you know, diverse teams feel less comfortable. They go. Oh, okay, so we have to push on this. It actually makes teams smarter, and people won't do it unless they're sort of it's made easy. We have to make this easier to do so. That's that's my take on it. And a lot of what I just shared is in a piece we wrote on

 

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David Rock: called diverse teams are smarter, and in why, diverse teams are smarter. We wrote that in Hbr, and we'll put that in the chat for you. So those 2 pieces are super super helpful for building a business case internally. Why, diverse teams are smarter, and the one I mentioned earlier. So that's my perspective, Janet. Over to you.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that article, because I mean that was you were saying that 10 years ago I mean so clearly. This is hell. That article's a little bit older. But what you found in that research is that

 

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Janet Stovall: you know they're more diverse teams. We say they're smarter. What we're saying is, they're more fact focused. They're more objective. They're more innovative. And all of those varied perspectives and experiences you talked about groupthink. But they prevent the conformity that leads to groupthink. And you know those kind of teams process information more carefully because they're challenging each other's ideas and to your point that when you're challenging ideas, you have to think a little bit more deeply about them. And ultimately, that's how you end up making better decisions.

 

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David Rock: And I want to just quickly address a question in the chat that I think is really interesting. You know, Team IQ is a real thing. And there's been a lot of research out of Mit on that Sandy Pentland, Anita, Woolley, Christian Bree, and others studied that and some other groups of people, and what they found mentioned before, like lots of people, have come to the same insight from different angles. What they found is that the higher the diversity of a team, the higher that team

 

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David Rock: IQ. And like adding a woman to an all main male team, absolutely increased that team IQ. But the variable that mattered incredibly and held that back or accelerated. It was what they call turn taking. And they actually studied this thing they called turn taking, which is literally, you know, do people have space to speak right? And at the time there was this really funny app, I think it still exists. It's just a website called is a dude talking too much.

 

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David Rock: and I'm going to have to say less right? It was just literally a button you press during an event like a dude is talking, not a dude talking, and you know, and it would time it would get the end of the session. You'd have like how much a dude was talking. And it was just this turn taking was the actual mechanism that the Mit team studied, and it showed really conclusively that low turn taking meant that diverse teams had no particular benefit and high turn taking you got.

 

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David Rock: you know, the diverse team was much, much smarter. So for us. Maybe it's an extrapolation. But for us that was really clearly inclusion. People feel like

 

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David Rock: they're able to speak up. I really have to stop talking now over to you, Janet.

 

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Janet Stovall: Let me just add one thing to you to what you said that we heard. Oftentimes people say, you know, inclusion is a seat at the table. I've always pushed back at that, because if I'm sitting at the table, but I can't say anything, or if I say anything and nobody does anything about it.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, good! Is that so? I think that you're absolutely right. Just having a seat at the table is not enough. You need to have some agency at that table. You need to have a voice at that table. You need to have people willing to listen to you and act on things that you give to that table. So yeah, I agree.

 

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Emma Sarro: Right, absolutely. And then and in addition to being able to speak up and and put your opinion on the table, it's also are others, actually using your opinion in the same, at the same weight as all of the other opinions at the table. So it takes work on both sides, right? And maybe a level of, we're not necessarily talking about psychological safety. But I can see psychological safety weaving through this whole. This whole piece.

 

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Emma Sarro: Yeah. Well, so moving on to. So what would be the counter argument? I feel like we've made a great case for? You know. What are the benefits? But what are people saying? On the other side of you know? Why is Dei not good?

 

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Emma Sarro: What would they say.

 

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David Rock: I have to say after you, Janet. After all that.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, no, I was going to let you go first, st but we'll flip it a little bit. I'll talk about it from a very broad way of doing it sort of the standard things I hear. I hear things like, you know, Dei prioritizes diversity over merit. Not true. The research out there shows that diverse teams when they're managed inclusively, they actually outperform non-diverse teams. And so we've talked about how that means. But if you focus solely on merit.

 

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Janet Stovall: The problem is, you can perpetuate existing biases in individuals and in the systems because it depends on who's defining merit

 

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Janet Stovall: and traditional measures may be biased against anyone who doesn't fit the traditional mold. And just a little fun. Fact. The term meritocracy was actually coined in 1958 by a British sociologist, and he didn't like the term. He didn't think it was a good thing he wrote a satirical novel, and what he said was, if you focus only on meritocracy. People who have power will think they're smart.

 

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Janet Stovall: They'll they'll think just because they kind of power. They're better at what they do, and it and power gets

 

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Janet Stovall: prioritized over actual ability. So when you can't focus just on that, you have to realize that somebody defined that, and it might not have been the same for everybody else. Another one, I hear, is what we just talked about earlier, that Dei creates division and resentment.

 

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Janet Stovall: not the case. If inclusion is prioritized. Psychological safety, then, can increase in teams, and then you have less conflict. And then, finally, there's the one that my, you know, my favorite one. Well, it's not really necessary, because we're all just people. That's a colorblind argument, really don't like that one that ignores the reality of lived experience that that says diversity isn't important, and it fails to acknowledge that systemic barriers still exist. They still affect some groups, and that you do have bias.

 

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David Rock: Yeah, there's a lot to say about that. Thanks, Janet. Firstly, you know, it reminds me of some work we did with a big hedge fund, who said, Look, you know, we're not hiring, you know, diversely, accidentally, what's going on. And we looked at their whole process. We have this thing called a coherence analysis, where we analyze any process for bias as well as growth and fixed mindset as well as threats. And anyway, we're analyzing so very granular, like their actual recruiting process against bias.

 

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David Rock: And what we saw there was a couple of questions that were really problematic. And they're really common, you know. One of them was, you know, is this person a culture fit? Would you feel, you know, good going, having a drink with them? And you know 2 different questions, and we say, You know, take this out and replace the culture fit question was with, Do you think this person will, you know, add a different perspective to the team, to, you know, to improve kind of, you know, positive, you know, positive friction. And that was really really helpful

 

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David Rock: to the process, because they just kept hiring people through their similarity bias. Right? One of the 5 categories of bias that they kept hiring people through that lens which was really challenging. And then the other thing I'll say about the counter arguments, and we sort of went back and forward on just this, you know this issue. But there's 2 counter arguments that are important for me. There are situations where

 

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David Rock: more diversity will reduce performance at a team level. There's no situations where more diversity is going to reduce performance at an organization level. But at a team level there are certain situations where at a team level diversity will reduce performance. And basically, that's when you literally don't want people to think you actually don't want them to think. And you don't want them to communicate. You want them to do a task, and you want them to kind of act as one. And you want them to flow really quickly. And those are 99% physical things

 

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David Rock: right? So they're throwing wood and chopping wood they're doing. You don't want them thinking you don't want them talking. You don't want them coming up with different ways of doing things that adding diversity to that kind of team will probably slow it down like that's the truth. And there's been some research on that. And I think it's important to say those things. But there's no research except there's 1 really, really, really important point. And I want to make this point, and it's a really important point. It's very, very possible

 

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David Rock: to roll out a Dei strategy and it do nothing or make things worse. If you don't follow the science. And the irony of this is a lot of the really intuitive things we feel like we should do like mandating, learning right.

 

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David Rock: end up, actually doing nothing or make things worse. So there is. There really really is a way that you can do what you think is good, Dei work and do nothing or make things worse. And what we've seen is that there are individual domains, like bias, individually to inclusion. Individually to speaking up. There are these individual domains where the science, if you really really follow it, actually suggests, do different things than what you would just do intuitively.

 

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David Rock: like intuitively on bias. You just say, Hey, let's just educate everyone about bias. Let's do a layer of building awareness. The science says, Don't do that

 

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David Rock: for a bunch of reasons. But we've unpacked this. We've been thinking a lot about this question, and we've put together a series I think Emma mentioned earlier. We put together a series of kind of quick focused sessions on what exactly the science says on each of these topics. These are going to come out. We've decided to do these at 2 times

 

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David Rock: rather than one, so that more people can join. So it's a 30 min session on the right way to decrease bias. Today. You can see, that's coming up next week, the 6th of March. There's 2 times those are us Eastern times, but we've made those so that it's flexible for Europeans to join. Welcome to folks from London the week after. You know the 30 min on the right way to increase inclusion the week after psych safety. And then we're closing with

 

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David Rock: business case. So we put together these kind of short, focused events that crystallize our best research and showing you like the actual models and frameworks that you really want to follow, and then we'll also show you the exact solutions that you can roll out. And you know, really flexible ways of doing that. So try and join us. For that. I think my team is going to put a link in the chat to be able to get to that, and we'll put that in towards the end as well if you miss it. But these are coming up

 

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David Rock: starting next week. So just to, you know, I'll summarize that as my team puts that in the chat, just like

 

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David Rock: it is very possible to care a lot and try and put a lot of thought and attention and resources into a Dei project, and to do nothing or make things worse if you don't actually follow the science, and particularly on those 3 issues, bias, inclusion. And speaking up, there are ways really to make a mess of that stuff. If you just kind of follow your intuitions on it. It's a really strange situation. So back to you, Emma.

 

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Emma Sarro: Yeah, thanks. Well, this kind of addresses one of the questions in in the chat as well, and getting to like, how is the right approach to improving Dei is, how do you first? st How do you educate employees on de and I with the stigma surrounding it today? And I'll go to either Janet or David.

 

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David Rock: Over to you, Janet.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, I think that

 

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Janet Stovall: 1st of all, leaders have to decide that they're going to champion this because you educate people. If you're not making it mandatory. Then you have to make it behavior, that is.

 

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Janet Stovall: that is accepted and desired. So leaders need to champion Dei. They need to communicate its importance. They need to align it with the company goals, and you know we talk often. You've seen studies where Dei falls apart in the middle middle managers, and I think the reason for that is because it doesn't get translated into action. So if you just

 

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Janet Stovall: pushing education, and there's no action to go with that. Then.

 

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Janet Stovall: you know, it's kind of hard to do, but that means that every employee needs to be empowered to own some goals and to contribute to inclusive workplace. You have to be able to talk about Dei in a way you mentioned. You know, it's sort of in a

 

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Janet Stovall: toxic environment you have to be able to bring people into this work so that they see themselves in it. That means that your messages have to be clear, compelling, coherent, and they really have to be focused on tangible benefits of Dei. You got to be proactive. You got to be strategic, and when you're facing resistance there are certain things you can do earlier this week Fast Company published Our Practical Guide to doing Dei work in a hostile era, and it suggests that organizations

 

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Janet Stovall: can double down on their commitment to Dei by connecting it to core values and business goals. And that might mean shifting the language. We're talking about that everywhere, shifting language. But it's about focusing on behaviors and actions rather than hearts and minds.

 

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Janet Stovall: And that means you got to gather data to measure the impact. You got to demonstrate its effectiveness. And finally, and you know, this is, I'm just going to be self shameless about this. You need to have experts like us that can provide valuable insights and support. I mean, we do this with a lot of different companies. So we've done rolled out training programs for a lot of different companies. So we have. You know, we've take our insights, and we put it into the work

 

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Janet Stovall: that we do in our consulting work and in the solutions that we build so full as long answer to your question. But all of these things are how you train people.

 

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David Rock: And thanks, Janice, and I'll put, you know, sort of put a point to that help people kind of synthesize that as well. And I'll just say, like

 

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David Rock: like, just on the bias topic. And we're gonna go into bias. Next week.

 

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David Rock: my team will put the links again in a second with the title of the of the event. So you can kind of get in and register. But we'll do that at the end, so you don't get distracted too much. But just on the bias topic like, it's really really easy to approach this and and and not do anything. But I'll just say we started working on bias in like, literally in 2010, in 2010, we were doing events, and we saw that 2010, 2011 across the 2 we saw that, like

 

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David Rock: bias, was one of the most challenging things that organizations companies were investing in it a lot. The problem was getting worse, not better. And then we looked at like all the academic literature, and it literally said, there is no way to actually reduce bias in humans like the literature says that. Still.

 

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David Rock: you can't actually make people less biased. It's not education, it's not self-awareness, it's not intelligence. It's not even bias awareness. It's such an interesting phenomena, and we worked out a way around that. But it took us 4 and a half years

 

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David Rock: of an extremely expert team and publishing something and then retracting it, and then going back to it. It took us 4 and a half years to actually come up with a way of meaningfully doing something about bias. And it's still, you know, we still have now the only framework that really does that. So it's not like these things are complicated. These things are still here because they're complicated.

 

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David Rock: and because the intuitions are not necessarily what the science suggests. So you know, again, we'll dig more into that next week. It's such an interesting thing. But to answer your question broadly, whether it's Dei

 

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David Rock: or you know some other thing that's a priority for you, you know safety, or you know, innovation, whatever is, you know, whatever it is, you've got to do 3 kinds of work. And this is sort of organizing something, Janet said, saying, you've gotta. You've got to make this a priority in your organization.

 

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David Rock: And that's the 1st step. So you basically got to get people to care. This has got to rise up above other things enough. Right now, this happened in 2020 in a huge way, and people are assuming. It's just going to vanish completely. It's not. It's still a priority for organizations. But you need to, you know, raise the priority. That's the 1st thing. Secondly, you need to actually build habits. You need to build everyday habits in everyone.

 

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David Rock: And, as Emma said at the start of this, this isn't about like isolating particular audiences or particular people. And because that's when you get backlash. This is like, what could everyone do? And it turns out that around bias inclusion. Speaking up, there's a role for everyone in this. And what is it everyone can do? That's simple

 

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David Rock: and evidence base, like, we actually know works right. And so that's that's been our approach to this on habits. But you've got to do the work of actually shifting habits right? And reminds me, I went to I went to Singapore airlines a few years ago, and like I was wondering around the training center, we've done a lot of work with them on their culture, and I was wondering around, and every like time I'd walk past an employee they would actually say hello and smile and greet me, and like, for the 1st 3 or 4 times I was like.

 

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David Rock: this is really strange. And then I realized that they've all been trained to do that as a habit.

 

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David Rock: right? And they were all cabin crew, of course, and they practiced that habit all the time. Right? So they were very friendly to outsiders, and just made you feel very included, very welcomed. Right? So that's an example of a habit, right? That everyone can do. And we've brought that into some hospital chains like, you know, when you're within 10 feet of a patient, you're going to smile and greet them warmly right? But there are these specific habits that you have to build, and it took us 4 and a half years to work those out on

 

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David Rock: bias, and it took us a couple of years to work that out on inclusion. The science isn't necessarily obvious and easy. So, anyway, so that so priorities, habits. And then the 3rd one is systems. And you've got to get the systems aligned. So you know, let's dig into this, Janet. What's your perspective? You've kind of talked a bit about this. But from your perspective. What are the best strategies for making Dei a priority?

 

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David Rock: In you know, as we go forward, what are your perspectives on the P and the Phs priorities, habit systems. What do you think.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, you made a point that I wanted to bring up. You said you said in 2020 it became a priority because of what happened. And the challenge with that is, if you're if you make something a priority because of something that is just

 

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Janet Stovall: happening in society or that kind of thing. It might not stay a priority to me. When you talk about priorities, you have to recognize that in corporate space the business space, the priority is always going to be the bottom line. So you got to tie it to that. And I think that had we, those of us who do this work, and I'm taking full responsibility for being in this work. But those of us who do this work, I think, did did spend, and who still

 

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Janet Stovall: talk about these things

 

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Janet Stovall: as passion, as the right thing to do all that. And I want to believe it's the right thing to do. But I also believe it's a smart thing to do, and when you want to prioritize it, you prioritize it, based on the things that are priority in your organization, whether it's your values, or whether it's your outcomes. And that to me is how you prioritize it. And that's when we do our coherence analysis. We look at those kinds of things. The habits are important, and when I talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

 

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Janet Stovall: I always say diversity, inclusion, and equity. But that makes for a not so nice acronym, so I don't use it in that case. But I think inclusion is important, because that's the one thing that is actionable, you know, no matter what seat you're in, you may not be able to determine what the diversity of an organization is. You may not be able to determine how equity happens, but you certainly can determine inclusion, and as long as you make it a habit.

 

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Janet Stovall: And I laughed when you talked about Singapore airlines, because I'm based here in Atlanta, the home of Chick-fil-a, and if you go to Chick-fil-a you always get my pleasure. And the 1st couple of times people did that to me. I'm like, where do they get this from? And now I realize they're trained to do that. And so

 

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Janet Stovall: I think about that. When I go. I want to hear that it makes me happy. So it is about behavior and changing behavior. And then systems. You know, we talk about systems. You have to get the bias out of the systems, because I always say, diversity is not a problem to solve.

 

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Janet Stovall: Diversity solves problems. Inclusion is not feeling valued. Inclusion is being able to deliver value. And equity is not fair people. It's fair systems. So when we talk about priorities, habits, and systems, that's what that means to me. You have to have it wrapped around the priorities of the business. You have to change behavior. Don't worry about beliefs, behavior, and you have to make sure the systems are mitigated. Bias.

 

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David Rock: Yeah, thanks, Janet, that's great. So you know, I'm going to anchor a bit on priorities, because next, you know, over this month we're going to tell you a lot about the habits, right? So I'm going to anchor a lot on on priorities and systems here. And you know, there's a bunch of counterintuitive things again, with priorities like, you'd imagine, with all this business case, that you could just walk into a C-suite and and show them data and say, Look.

 

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David Rock: it's great, right? And they go, okay, great, let's prioritize. That's not been working. And it's, you know, it's really a thing. So you know, you sort of got to take it with a grain of salt. The the business case data is important. It's like required. But it's not sufficient.

 

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David Rock: It's a necessary hygiene factor. You need it, but it doesn't necessarily win hearts and minds right. What I find is really helpful with making this a priority in an organization is understanding the mechanics

 

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David Rock: that I walked through before, but even more richly like understanding that it's a team level issue, that it's a team IQ issue, you know. And then even like walking through like exactly how that works. So actually explaining to intelligent C-suites like, why, diverse teams are actually smarter, but also the fact that they don't feel like that like that's a really really important set of insights when I've done that. And I've done that maybe a hundred times to different C-suites.

 

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David Rock: We have a thing called an executive briefing that you're welcome to hire us to come in and do this with your teams. But when we've done this, people see the lights coming on like, Oh, okay, so it is actually helpful. This is how. And but this is why we're not doing it so much right? So so it's it's really important. But then I find, and I think you alluded to this, Janet, that the narratives you need really good stories also.

 

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David Rock: and the stories are really important. We had an amazing session, was it? Just last week, Emma? With Damien? It was a week before we had an amazing session. I'm super biased because he's Australian, and he's just such an awesome, awesome character. But we had the session with this guy. If you saw it, you remember, but he basically like massively transform or transforming

 

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David Rock: like the the conservation in all of Africa. And he did it in a way, that's completely novel that no one's ever tried before. And he basically, you know, 62% of his 1,000 person organization, roughly, 1,000 person organization are women, and they are 100% of the frontline soldiers who are literally armed rangers. Right? So they're a hundred. So 62% of the business are women.

 

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David Rock: So 600 something women, all armed rangers, trained and, like, you know, quite armed. And they go out and literally stop poachers, and it turns out that they do this in a much more effective way than when the men are armed poachers for all sorts of reasons. Right? They naturally de-escalate the money goes back into their village, not other places. All these incredible reasons, and he transformed

 

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David Rock: the effectiveness of conservation there by completely changing how he thought about his workforce. And it's such a fascinating event. My team can put this in the chat there. It is there already. Thanks, Tony, really inspiring session. But it's a diversity story, right? This is a story of someone completely changing the game by just thinking completely, differently about. And it's not like men don't have a role there. There's, you know, almost 40% men there.

 

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David Rock: They do all sorts of really important roles. But they put the women in this role because it turns out to be better. So that's just an example of a narrative like you need. That's probably the wrong narrative for a company. They'll be like, Oh, my God, but you need a powerful, appropriate narrative in some ways, just as much as you need the data. And this goes back to our research, you know.

 

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David Rock: Insight changes the brain and insight changes companies.

 

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David Rock: and you know you need leaders to have an insight, a powerful insight about Dei for this to become a priority, and the best insights come from really good data and science with really good storytelling. So you really need both. So you need good data and science, good storytelling. And then you need to, you know, deliver this in a way that really creates powerful insights for that for that C-suite team. That's basically how you make it a priority from from my perspective, Janet. Anything else you want to add on the priority side.

 

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Janet Stovall: No, I think you nailed that perfectly, and of course I have a sweet place in my heart for the idea of storytelling, because I come from a communications background. People have to see themselves in the work, and the work has to be relevant for them. If they think of Dei as something over there that doesn't affect them is not part of their life. They're not going to do it. And so I do agree with you that

 

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Janet Stovall: telling the story and making it relevant, which means you have to tell it different ways, but anchoring on the things that everybody in an organization is accountable for anchoring on the things that everybody needs to care about is a really good way, I think, to make sure that you can tell the story in a way that makes sense for everybody.

 

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David Rock: Yeah, fantastic. Hey? We're going to do some closing questions. There's a couple of really interesting questions in the chat I want to address, and also in the Q. And A, we'll come to that in a moment. I just want to put up the polls. So we know how to sort support people, so we can see sort of how to best support you going forward. So couple of interesting things. So some of you are saying, how do I get more time with Janet, hire her or me or anyone else in our team for an executive briefing. So if you're interested in executive briefing, we'll come in virtually most.

 

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David Rock: and walk through the science of why, you know, diversity is good for business and really stepping through it. So we can do this virtually we can do this very quickly. So an executive briefings, you know 60 or 90 min session to your C-suite or senior leaders on like the right way to do Dei today. The second one on the list here is just like looking at a strategy. So we do a lot of work to help companies just define their strategy

 

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David Rock: separately to the 3rd one, which is really building new habits at scale. And we're going to talk more about that in our bias session next week. So we've got 2 times for that bias section next week, and my team can put just that bias one in the chat right now. So if you want to get to that, you'll see the 2 links just for the bias next week. So building habits. And then the 4th option, there is educational programs for yourself. So we've got a fantastic brain based coaching program and a certificate

 

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David Rock: program in the foundations of all this work as well. Thanks, Erin, for dropping that in. So some questions, I want to just jump to one. I think that's really interesting. And they're all interesting. But someone's asking Adrian's asking about good diversity. Janet, do you want to take that first? st How would you define good diversity in an organization.

 

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Janet Stovall: I didn't see that question. What's the what's the what's the.

 

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David Rock: It was in the it was in the Q. And a. I'll have a go at it first, st I guess, and then it was in the Q&A, but it was literally just, you know, how do we define good diversity? So the the

 

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David Rock: the interesting thing about this is there is definitely an impact on. And I'm going to get the word wrong. There's a technical term for this that's better. But visible diversity. So race gender ethnicity, those kind of things. So they do have a bump in terms of performance over just cognitive diversity. So there was a time, a few years back, where people were saying, Oh, we just need cognitive diversity. It's okay. We've got

 

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David Rock: you know, a whole bunch of people who look different who look the same. But it's okay. They've got different degrees. And it turns out that that cognitive diversity is important, but actually visible. Diversity is actually important as well. So I'd say good good diversity from my perspective is, you know, you've got you've got, you know, that visible diversity. But you also have, like socioeconomic diversity, right and political diversity. And you know other kinds.

 

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David Rock: neurodiversity as well. So you know, you really want to be quite inclusive about diversity in that way, you know, while making sure. Of course you've got the inclusion really covered. So that's that's my perspective on kind of good diversity. If there's such a thing, Janet, do you want to take that as well. Diversity.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, I agree with that. But for me, the reason that's important is because good diversity is whatever diversity you need to produce, the outcomes you're trying to get. And the reality is, since everybody, since perspectives, different perspectives give you a different way of looking at things, there can really not be too much bad

 

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Janet Stovall: diversity, unless it's only one kind. So I think the more and different kinds is what good diversity is. But to me it's almost a redundancy to say good diversity. Diversity is good. I mean it. Just we know that we've proven it. So yeah.

 

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David Rock: Yeah, maybe just better.

 

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Janet Stovall: Hard to answer.

 

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David Rock: Maybe better diversity strategy than than other diversity strategies. Something like that.

 

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David Rock: And you know, there's an interesting question also from the same person. What's the definition of a Dei program? And there's a lot of ways of thinking about that. Do you want to take that, Janice? How do you define a Dei program or strategy. What are the components of a good Dei strategy overall.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well.

 

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Janet Stovall: I think first, st there has to be clear definition of what your goal when we come in. My 1st question is, what are you solving, for you need to understand what it is you're trying to do. And then you need to figure out, how can you make things objective like a habit so that people can understand do clearly

 

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Janet Stovall: do over and over again. It's simple, and then you have to be able to measure it because you have to understand that if you don't, if you're not achieving your goal, you start off having a goal. You don't know if you get there, if you don't measure it, and then, if you're not, you can go back and figure out what it is you're going to do. So. I think those things are important. But at the end of the day, when you think about a definition of Dei program.

 

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Janet Stovall: it's hard to say that there's any one definition. I push back always on the term best practice, because every organization is different. Inclusion looks different at every organization. And so you have to be able to understand that a good Dei program is the one that makes it possible for you as an organization to leverage the diversity

 

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Janet Stovall: that is so valuable. And it's going to be different. There's some things that a lot of people do that work, but in terms of best practice

 

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Janet Stovall: I'm not a believer in that. I think this is too dynamic and an area for there to be best practice.

 

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David Rock: Yeah. And I just want to make a quick comment about measurement as well, like people say all the time, how do we measure this. Well, actually, if you know that diversity and inclusion requires specific habits, right? You can actually measure the frequency of those habits and then run an initiative and see how it changes. You know an example, you know, a leader that's more inclusive speaks last. When an important conversation happens, they literally go last, and it's much more inclusive, and you can measure the frequency of that

 

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David Rock: and see how it improves. So when you, when you know the habits you're looking for, you can actually get really rich data. So we know, for example, when we roll out bias mitigation that 78% of people. And this is data from 10,000 folks

 

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David Rock: that we train 78% of people do something about bias now every week that they weren't doing before. And so when you know the habits you can actually measure really, effectively. We're going to wrap up in probably a minute or 2. Just if you are interested in executive briefing, put your company, name and executive briefing in the chat, someone will reach out to you really quickly, probably faster than using the poll. So if you're interested in executive briefing, you know, similar to what we've done today. But more.

 

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David Rock: you know, obviously, you know, with a deck and research and slides and all that just put executive briefing in the chat, and someone will reach out to you. I saw a question about that. Secondly, if you're interested in in really talking, you know, as quick as you can about habit activation and getting into really driving change. Just put habits and your company name

 

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David Rock: in. Make sure you put the company name. So we we know who to support you with. So when you put executive Briefing or company name, please sorry executive briefing or habits, put your company name as well. We'll be really fast then to follow up.

 

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David Rock: and if you're interested in strategy work like looking at your strategy, you can put the word strategy in your company name. This is just. It'll save a few days of kind of us getting to you versus using the the poll. But I think we're coming to the end, Janet. Any closing thoughts from your perspective on kind of the insights from this session. What are you seeing from this session overall.

 

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Janet Stovall: Well, I'm looking forward to going back and reading some of the comments to get some insights from me, but I'm still a firm believer that

 

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Janet Stovall: the reason I'm at Nli, and the reason I believe in the work we do is because it's objective. And I think that this work.

 

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Janet Stovall: Dei, diversity, equity, inclusion is a naturally subjective space, but the more objectivity you can bring to it in terms of science, in terms of behavior, change, the more likely you are to make it work, make it sustained, and embed it in the organization. So I'm a big proponent of science and behavior change.

 

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David Rock: Yeah, yeah, thanks. Jen, it might, you know, just it really comes back

 

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David Rock: to me. It really comes back to follow the science experiment and follow the data. And that's important in any kind of human change. It just happens to be really important when it comes to this issue. And there's obviously a lot of strong emotions on all sides of this debate, right? But it really isn't a debate. When you follow the science, it's really clear that it's helpful that it's important, and that there is a right way to do it. So for me, it's just follow the science experiment. Follow the data

 

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David Rock: excited to see the incredible interest in in the executive briefing. So you know, we'll get to you really quickly and get those going. But just you know. Thanks, Janet, for your full participation and great thinking preparing this as well, and I'll hand back. I'll hand back to you, Emma, to close off.

 

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Emma Sarro: Thank you. Thank you, Janet. Thank you, David. And for me it's really the, you know, the idea that diversity is critical. But the way you get the benefit is really, what are the behaviors that you're putting in place to to drive? What are those inclusive behaviors? And they might be different for every organization, but they're the intentional things we need to build in. But I will pass it back over to you, Erin. Thank you all for this conversation great crowd, great comments

 

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Emma Sarro: have a wonderful weekend.

 

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David Rock: Thanks everyone. Thanks. Janet. Bye, bye.

 

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Erin Wickham: Thanks, David. Thanks, Janet, thanks, Emma. I will do some closing comments. But thank you, everyone for being here. Thank you for the discussion in the chat. This was a great session that we've had today. If you have not had a chance to answer the poll or share in the chat what you would like to be followed up with about. Feel free to do that now, and as we mentioned, we are kicking off a 5 week, de and I webinar series, where we will share in 30 min the right way to approach de. And I today, I

 

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Erin Wickham: think there was a slide that was gonna pop up. But we'll include all the information and the follow up. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. There's the schedule up on the slide. We are intentionally making this so that it can be a global

 

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Erin Wickham: experience. So you can join either at 10 Am. Or 5 pm. Eastern, we will have global times available as well. But feel free to register for that. It will be included in the follow up email from today's conversation.

 

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Erin Wickham: If you enjoyed today's webinar, you'll love our. Podcast so make sure you subscribe to your brain at work, live wherever you find your podcasts that brings us to the end of today's session. We will officially say farewell, and we will hopefully see you next Thursday on our Mini session.

 

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Erin Wickham: Thanks for joining us. We'll be here next Friday. As well. Talk soon.